


Futility

by JimIntoMystery



Series: Futility [1]
Category: Star Trek
Genre: Delta Quadrant, Gen, The Borg, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-01-25 22:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 31,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1665527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JimIntoMystery/pseuds/JimIntoMystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Federation has declared war on the Borg.</p>
<p>The cybernetic hive-mind that lurks on the far side of the galaxy is no longer seen as a sleeping giant.  Since the starship Voyager returned to Earth eight years ago, Starfleet has made considerable advancements in anti-Borg technology and transwarp propulsion.  Admiral Kathryn Janeway now commands a vast armada in the Delta Quadrant.  With one ship she brought the Collective to its knees; now she will settle for nothing less than its capitulation.</p>
<p>However, a promising officer has begun to question the war following the loss of his ship.  And much like Janeway, he refuses to yield to the inevitable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kreighen awoke slowly, as if rousing from a dream he preferred to revisit. He was in no hurry to start the day--the pillow was unimaginably soft against his cheek, and the woman by his side more than made up for the blankets she had kicked off the bed during the night. He had a slight ache in his stomach, but in his present state of mind he reasoned that he couldn't be hungry if he went back to sleep.

He lay this way for nearly ten minutes, as his waking mind struggled to reassert itself with matters that needed attending. It finally came to him like a forgotten appointment, and he immediately sat up in what had been his bed. It was now a bulkhead. The woman pressed against him was a man, crumpled and broken. It was the pillow that had been a woman, upon whose thigh Kreighen's head had come to rest when their escape pod crash-landed.

He shuddered for a moment, briefly shocked to awaken surrounded by corpses, then steeled himself for the tasks ahead. As though concerned with inflicting further damage, he untangled himself from the bodies carefully. Then, making at least a token gesture to honor his comrades, he examined both officers in an attempt to identify them. He hadn't known them before the evacuation, and there had been no time wasted on formal introductions when they boarded the pod. But the _Bonham_ was a fairly small vessel, and given time Kreighen could probably put a name to any face in its crew.

He stood up, so far as there was room in the upended pod, and addressed the dead man--"Ensign M'rell"--and then the woman--"Lieutenant Ionescu." There wasn't time to pay his respects any further than that. Proper burials would have to wait until he could save himself.

Kreighen scanned his surrounding for the escape pod's transceiver. He craned his neck, trying to view the interior of the pod as it would appear when upright, hoping to see something resembling his faint memory of the Bonham's last lifeboat drill. Stooped over like a question mark, he stumbled around for several minutes, until he finally located--above his head--the storage cabinet for the pod's survival equipment.

It was empty.

Kreighen began searching the floor, trying to determine where gravity might have taken the transceiver, with a bias towards impact points that would not have damaged the equipment. When he found nothing, he pounded the bulkhead above him and muttered a series of profanities. Resigned to the problem, he sat down and tapped the comm-badge on his chest. "Kreighen to any and all personnel. This is a general distress call. If you can hear me, please respond."

Standard procedure was to provide identification and repeat the message, but Kreighen was in no mood to waste his time. After a few moments without any answer he gave up on the comm-badge; it was never intended for more than ship-to-shore communications, and whatever "shore" he was on was clearly far from any ship. He needed a radio with more power. He needed the damn transceiver.

He closed his eyes and tried to picture the layout of the escape pod from the drills, undisturbed and untoppled. In his mind's eye he entered this idealized pod, and scanned around for each component in the order prescribed by the instructor. When he got to the transceiver, it was exactly where he thought it should be, in a compartment on the starboard side of the pod. He then tried to twist his mental image to match his surroundings, hoping that this would reveal the empty compartment he found earlier was some other, unnecessary thing. Instead, he was brought right back to the empty locker, with nothing to show for his concentration.

The only possible explanation was that the transceiver had somehow fallen behind something, obscuring it from view, which meant that that he'd need to do a more thorough search. Fumbling about, bent at a right angle, he savaged every seat and panel of the pod, leaving nothing unturned. By now his frustration was giving him a headache, which went along swimmingly with the strain in his back from navigating through the constricted space. Before long he was tripping over the crewmen he had struggled to honor just minutes earlier. It was only then that he heard a familiar beep as his boot hit something underneath Ionescu's torso.

Kreighen found the transceiver lodged under the weight of the dead woman. Presumably it fell before the lieutenant did. He struggled to pull his comrade out of the way as delicately as possible, but when this proved infeasible he abandoned ceremony and jerked the dead weight over as though discarding an unwanted mattress. When he finally had unrestricted access to the transceiver, Kreighen just stopped and sat for a moment, reveling in his tiny victory. 

He quickly configured the device and began transmitting. "This is a general distress call from Lieutenant Jacob Kreighen of the Federation starship _Bonham_. My ship has been lost, and I am in need of immediate assistance. If you are receiving this signal, please respond. Repeat, this is a general distress call--"

There was a loud thumping noise coming from outside of the pod. Kreighen went silent, and shut down the transceiver. The thumping stopped almost simultaneously. His eyes darted to the first porthole he could find unobstructed, and found nothing but haze. It might have been his imagination, he considered, but he couldn't afford to take that chance in a war zone. 

Rummaging through the equipment scattered on the ground among the corpses, Kreighen located a medical tricorder. There was a considerable crack in the display of the tool, but it was all he had. Upon setting the device to scan for life forms, the results were as unclear as the view out of the porthole. So far as Kreighen could tell, there was something outside the pod, but it could have been anything from a humanoid to a slime mold. He would have to investigate firsthand.

Reconfiguring the tricorder, he attempted to determine the environment around the pod. Originally, his plan had been to maneuver the pod towards a Class-K planet, but damage to the guidance system forced him to stop short here, at a Class-H moon orbiting a nearby gas giant. They had crashed before Kreighen could determine how Class-H it really was. His scans now showed the one bright spot of the entire crash--atmospheric pressure and temperature were manageable, and hyperonic radiation levels were low enough to allow limited jaunts out of the lifeboat. He strapped on a rebreather and picked up a phaser, preparing himself for the worst.

The hatch of the escape pod opened slowly, making him wait. The moonscape was dim, warmed more by its own geological activity than by its distant sun, and he had to resist the urge to shoot at shadows in the distance. In any case, whatever was out there, it wasn't standing in the entryway. Did that prove it wasn't intelligent life? Kreighen couldn't count on that as he stepped out into the open. 

The aft of the pod was clear, and so he had to choose whether to circle around to the port side or starboard. Either way he went meant a 50% chance of turning his back to the life form. Kreighen refused to concern himself with that factor, and headed to starboard, where the thump had come from. That decision might well have kept him alive for at least a few more minutes. Just as he began to turn the corner, his visitor came around from the other direction, and they met face-to-face.

It was a Borg.


	2. Chapter 2

There was no time to size up the Borg drone--it was already nose-to-nose with Kreighen before either of them could react. It would not flinch or panic--programming in its cybernetic brain would immediately determine its next move. To stay alive Kreighen would have to be even faster.

Indeed, the drone reacted promptly, but not quickly. Their technology was designed to overpower, not outmaneuver. It lurched forward with its left hand, intending to shoot a pair of tubules into Kreighen's carotid artery. That was standard procedure for assimilating a victim into the Borg Collective, to the point of being extremely predictable. Kreighen knew exactly how to defend himself, grabbing the arm and pulling the drone into a shoulder throw. It landed hard on its back, flailing its limbs for a moment. This was the Borg Collective's most critical weakness; its drones weren't supposed to fall, so they weren't adept at getting back up.

Lieutenant Kreighen, on the other hand, was fully aware he could die a hundred different ways in the next five minutes, and so he pressed his advantage. As he returned to a standing position from the throw, he reached for any wires he could see, hoping to sever some vital connection. Back to a vertical base, he punted the drone in the skull. A clean fight was out of the question. Every opportunity to inflict damage had to be taken. 

He stepped back to give himself room to fire his weapon. The drone staggered to its feet, its ocular implant dangling from what was left of its eye socket. Kreighen discharged the phaser, but the drone was still able to throw up a small force field to absorb the blast. He cursed under his breath and changed tactics. Switching his phaser setting, he issued another shot. This time there was no visible beam, as a subspace jamming frequency ripped through the Borg's brain, jamming the neural transceiver linking it to the hive mind. For a few seconds at best, the drone had been liberated from the Collective.

But that didn't result in a truce. Kreighen didn't dare seek to appeal to the drone's long-buried humanity or attempt to nurse it back to health. The phaser didn't have enough power to sustain the pulse that long; any compassion shown to the drone would be quickly forgotten when its Borg subroutines reasserted themselves. This was nothing but a distraction--giving the drone a instant of freedom was simply a way to move in for the kill.

Kreighen lunged at the bewildered Borg, capitalizing on its brief disorientation, and tackled it back to the ground. It struggled to speak, to re-learn skills denied to it for years, while the butt of the phaser rained down again and again on its face. Kreighen didn't care what it had to say. He didn't want to care. He couldn't afford to. The machine was too grave a threat; he had to attack the person inside.

Confused and feeling pain for the first time since its assimilation, the drone began to swat its arms at its attacker, not fully appreciating the arsenal at its disposal. A lucky blow connected with Kreighen, gouging his temple with a stray implant and knocking him out of the mount. He rolled back to his feet, phaser in hand. The Borg sat up, bruised and bleeding, looking for some way to escape this nightmare.

"W-w-" it sputtered and hissed like static. "Wait..."

He couldn't. Within a minute, the drone's desperate plea would be drowned out by trillions of voices from the Collective. The pathetic creature he'd been brutalizing would stand up with newfound resolve, stride toward him, and kill him. Or worse. He couldn't let himself be captured. The danger to the Alliance was too great.

Kreighen leveled his weapon, and fired a sustained burst into the drone's chest. It's armor offered some limited protection, but the subroutines that activated its force fields had been disabled by the subspace pulse. It reached out in vain to him, as if to beg for its life. For a moment, Kreighen thought he could hear it whimpering amidst the shriek of the phaser beam. And then finally, after agonizing seconds, the frightened drone slumped to the ground, never again to threaten the galaxy.

Refusing to let himself feel anything for his enemy, Kreighen wiped the blood from his head and exchanged his phaser with his tricorder. If anything else was waiting for him in the shadows, he couldn't locate it. So far as his scanned indicated, there were no Borg life signs on the moon.

The tricorder's readings reminded him of the moon's radiation, and he hurried back into the safety of the escape pod. With the hatch closed behind him, Kreighen finally sank to the ground and allowed himself the luxury of contemplating his actions. The corpses of M'rell and Ionescu offered him no reassurance.

He sat this way, staring blankly toward his hands, for several minutes, before recalling that he shut down the transceiver when he thought it was provoking the Borg. With the danger eliminated, it was safe to make another attempt at a distress call. The standard protocol came less easily to him this time. "This...this is Lieutenant Jacob Kreighen of the starship _Bonham_. I need help...please respond." 

The transceiver blinked at him, signaling an incoming response. Anxiously he opened the channel. "Otlinnu Keeragien, jolan," he heard, even if he didn't understand. "Wamisch ar'na Shiere Ramyihlan D'deridex _Vreenak_. Annankana."

Kreighen shook his head. The two semesters of Vulcan he took at the Academy weren't much, but it was all he had to help him decipher the message. Hoping he got the general idea right, he responded. "Romulan Warbird, this is Lieutenant Kreighen. My escape pod crashed here...I think the universal translator in my radio was damaged. If you can understand me better than I can understand you, I'll start giving you my last known coordinates."

There was a long pause. "Agg-nolledged, Keeragien, wee...reahd yoo noisee hand cleehar?"

Kreighen smiled. "Good enough for me, Romulan Warbird. Tell your linguist I'm buying him a drink."


	3. Chapter 3

By the time the Romulans arrived, Kreighen had managed to bury the bodies of Lieutenant Ionescu and Ensign M'Reel. Their comm-badges jangled in his pocket, waiting to be turned over to the next of kin. He had left the Borg corpse lay where he killed it, unmourned, for his rescuers to examine.

It turned out that "Shiere Ramyihlan D'deridex _Vreenak_ " translated to "the Imperial Romulan Warbird _Vreenak_ ," which he learned as soon as he came aboard. It was named for one of their politicians, whose senseless death caused the Romulan Empire to enter the Dominion War of the 2370s. That marked the first major cooperative effort between the Romulans and Kreighen's government, the United Federation of Planets, after centuries of cold war. After the Dominion was defeated, the Federation Starfleet provided invaluable assistance to the Empire during the Reman Crisis of 2379, leading to further diplomatic overtures. Today Kreighen sat in a Romulan infirmary, no one thinking anything of it. Vreenak's sacrifice had not been in vain.

"We've still got a lot to learn about human medicine," the physician told him as she repaired the wound on Kreighen's temple, "so I'll be sending along instructions to your superiors to make sure a Starfleet doctor checks you out." 

Kreighen heard the sound of a door opening and struggled to turn his head against his insistent caregiver. It was a Romulan man, stiff and formal. "How is our guest?"

The doctor finished up her work with the dermal regenerator. "He won't need to stay here, Subcommander, but I was just telling the lieutenant he'll need another examination when we get back to D-19." She looked back to his patient. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Kreighen, I need to continue my rounds."

The Starfleet officer offered his hand to the subcommander. "Lieutenant Jacob Kreighen."

He considered his gesture for a moment before taking the hand in his own, shaking it slightly. "Subcommander Mejek, first officer of the _Vreenak_. Welcome aboard. Our commander would be here personally, but she's preoccupied with the search and rescue mission."

"I don't suppose you found any other survivors from the _Bonham_..."

He made little effort to break the news gently. "We've recovered a handful of survivors from the battle, but none from your ship, save for yourself. I must ask you, Lieutenant...was the _Bonham_ cloaked at any time during the attack?"

Kreighen shook his head. "We were on our way to attack them, so no--stealth was pointless. By the time the Borg overpowered us it was too late to hide."

"That bodes well for your crew, then," he replied. "Our orders are to search for survivors so long as we can go undetected. The longer we have no reason to believe the Borg can see through our cloak, the longer we can keep looking."

"Ten hours ago we had no reason to believe the Borg could outgun us..."

"Yes...well...I'm afraid I have to let you take that matter up with your superiors, Lieutenant. If I might ask, though...the drone you encountered at the crash site...are you aware of its origins?"

Kreighen hadn't exactly been trying to ponder the drone. "I blacked out in the crash. The next thing I knew it was making noises outside of my escape pod. Is it possible it ended up on the moon the same way I did?"

"We scanned the area for scout ships, or anything that might have deposited him there, but the only sign of Borg presence was the drone itself."

"Then..." Kreighen took a deep breath as he reconsidered the battle. "They were raiding the _Bonham_ when the order was given to self-destruct. Could it have grabbed hold of the pod as it was ejecting?"

"The Borg can live for extended periods of time in a vacuum," Mejek observed. "'Extended' and 'indefinite' being rather different matters. It couldn't have lasted for the length of time it would take to simply drift onto that moon without a ship. But clamped onto the side of something that has a thruster...it's possible. And it's the only explanation that fits the facts..."

"With all due respect, sir," Kreighen interjected, "what's the difference where it came from? Either way it's still dead."

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant. That's another matter that your Starfleet will decide whether to explain to you when we reach D-19." Mejek relaxed his posture slightly, as well his tone. "In the meantime, the _Vreenak_ and its facilities are at your disposal. My shift won't begin for another three hours, and I thought a tour might help you relax."

Kreighen stood up from the bio-bed. "Thank you for your hospitality, Subcommander, but perhaps you should just have someone take me to my quarters..."

"That won't be possible; I'm afraid you have a prior commitment."

"Excuse me?"

Mejek smirked. "You owe me a drink, Lieutenant. Or did you think our commander would trust a Romulan-to-English translation to anyone less than her first officer?" 

"I...suppose I thought that would have to wait until D-19."

"Spoken like a man who's never visited a Romulan saloon."

Kreighen blinked. "I, uh, didn't know Romulans had saloons..."

"Then you probably don't know how much Romulan subcommanders can drink on someone else's tab," Mejek countered as he escorted Kreighen out of the infirmary. "But you will..."


	4. Chapter 4

"Saloon" seemed an awkward translation for the _Vreenak's_ officer's lounge, although the reality was just as surprising to Kreighen as the hype. At least fifty people were mingling in the area--most of them Romulan, along with a few members of other species--eating, drinking, and gambling. On the far side of the room he noticed Romulans...dancing? For all the progress Romulan-Federation relations had made in the past few years, there was still a lot to learn about Romulan culture. This was by far the most fun he had ever seen any of them having without making veiled threats about the Neutral Zone.

There was no bar--perhaps that accounted for the translation. Kreighen and Mejek took their place among the patrons, standing at a small meter-high table. "Not what you expected, is it?" the subcommander asked wryly.

"Not at all. But you don't sound surprised."

"The Federation is built on spreading its ideals throughout the galaxy," Mejek observed, "and letting those ideals bring other worlds into their community. You expect the same from other civilizations, and sometimes they meet that expectation--Klingons expect everyone else to understand their code of honor, Ferengi proselytize about the benefits of libertarianism, and so forth..."

Kreighen took his meaning. "But not Romulans."

"...But not Romulans. We don't care if anyone else shares our worldview, or even if they know what it is. As long as the universe is safe for our way of life, we have no need to remake the universe in our image. So if you're my friend, I take you to the saloon. If you were my enemy, why would I even mention my people have saloons? My only concern would be to keep you at a safe distance, not to teach you how I relax."

"I suppose that gives your people a unique perspective on the Borg."

"Let's just say that our distaste for assimilation runs a bit deeper than that of our allies," offered Mejek. "Don't misunderstand...we know this has come across for centuries as what you call paranoia, but--"

"Excuse me, Subcommander." The server had arrived. "What will you be having?"

Kreighen had no idea what was available. "Two...ah...Romulan ales?"

"Not for me, Lieutenant. Jamaican overpoof rum, neat."

After the server stepped away Kreighen gave his companion an odd look. "Earth rum? Really?"

"Just synthehol. I tried the real thing after it was legalized, and promptly learned why it was banned to begin with. Where was I?"

"You seemed confused by the concept of paranoia."

"I'm not confused by the concept, just the negative connotations toward it in your society. To a Romulan there's nothing wrong with believing the world is out to get you, because believing that forces you to prepare yourself for the worst. Everything you see here--Romulans enjoying themselves, fraternizing with humans--is only possible because we're _that confident_ that all our perceived threats are in check."

"It's...an interesting philosophy," Kreighen admitted as their drinks arrived.

Mejek downed his shot. "If I didn't subscribe to it, I wouldn't feel safe drinking human whiskey."

***

Mejek had provided interesting conversation for another ninety minutes or so, before heading out to get ready for his shift. Kreighen, on the other hand, had no place to go. He did his best to be sociable, but within a few hours the saloon had cleared out. By his reckoning the _Vreenak_ was on its night shift. He'd lost all track of time since evacuating from the _Bonham_ , but (barring his blackout during the crash) he'd probably been up for nearly twenty hours. He wasn't tired, though--or at least, not drowsy. After the day's events, part of him wanted to shut everything off, and part of him wanted to remain conscious to appreciate it.

"You there! Human!"

Kreighen looked up from his glass to see a couple of Klingons sitting in a corner of the lounge. Presumably they were among the survivors the _Vreenak_ had been rescuing. "Drink with us," the big one said. "My friend has run out of war stories to tell."

Kreighen approached them casually. "As long as that's _real_ bloodwine you're drinking."

The smaller one scoffed at the implication that it might not be. "When the Romulans came for us, they said to bring only the most essential equipment." He laughed as he brandished a rather large jug. "We followed their orders...to the letter!"

"Wish I'd thought of that," the human said as he let them fill his glass. "Jake Kreighen."

"Chorn, son of Pak'esh!" the big man replied. 

"Aktaal, son Krexis!" said the other. "Come, Kreighen, tell us of your glories!"

He drank the wine quickly. "Not much to tell. I was from the USS _Bonham_..."

"Ahhh," Chorn growled. "Then you're the human who killed the drone on that moon!"

"Word travels fast," Kreighen muttered.

"Spare us your human modesty, Kreighen," Aktaal huffed. "To have killed a Borg on this day is no small feat, and among Klingons you're welcome to gloat! Tell us...was it a Klingon you saved from everlasting obscenity?"

The question caught him off-guard. "I...couldn't tell...I don't think so."

Chorn winced. "'Couldn't tell'...the thought of it, to be so...altered as to not be recognizably Klingon or not Klingon. Is it any wonder we made peace with these Romulan _taHqeqpu_ against them?"

The Romulan waiter overheard. "Who else would give you someplace to get drunk, Klingon _veruul_?" Both Klingons chortled loudly at this. It was astonishing for Kreighen to see how an intergalactic blood feud had transformed to verbal horseplay in only a few years.

"So, Kreighen..." said Aktaal, "...did your shipmates die with honor?"

"I don't know," he told the warriors. "We blew up the ship before we'd let them take it. I know other escape pods were launched, but the Romulans haven't found any..."

"It shouldn't even be an issue," Chorn interrupted. "When I fought the Dominion, when my father fought the Romulans, when _his_ father fought the Federation, a warrior could at least know he would achieve victory or die on the battlefield. If the enemy captured you alive, you could at least end your own disgrace. But the Borg..."

"All the more reason to carry on," Kreighen argued. "Better you should be assimilated than your sons and their sons."

Aktaal raised his goblet. "Well spoken, Kreighen. But as I remember it, no one was to be assimilated at all."

"What of it, Aktaal?" Chorn countered. "If the war goes badly you would no sooner retreat than I."

"Of course, now that the knife has already been drawn. But only a fool enters a battle before he's ready."

Kreighen broke in. "The battle was already started before we even invaded Borg space. After Bolarius it wasn't as if we had a choice..."

"We had a choice," the waiter piped in again. 

"Oh? What do you know of it, bartender?" Chorl huffed.

"Look," the Romulan said, approaching the others. "I'm no soldier, and I won't claim to know as much as any of you about what it's like to be in a battle. But our governments worked together and wiped out the Borg at Bolarius IX. The threat was over."

"Until the next time they send a cube into the Alpha Quadrant," Kreighen added, his temper rising.

"The point is, we could have spent more time preparing for this war. But everyone was frightened, and easily sold on the Janeway Doctrine..."

Chorl stood up and glared at the man. "It makes no difference how we came to this moment! What matters is that we are here. And now that we _are_ here, I will fight to the death to defeat the Borg, so that the next time they assimilate a planet, it won't be a Klingon world!"

Kreighen shook off his own anger, and he jumped up to prevent an incident. "Let it go, Chorl. We can't all take the Klingon perspective on war."

Chorl tensed for a moment, and then took a swig of his bloodwine. "No, Kreighen," he admitted, never turning his gaze from the waiter, "we are not all Klingons. But know this, Romulan...our people may be allies now, but you should be more careful to whom you speak of retreat."

The waiter backed up, trying to defuse the situation. "I meant no insult, Klingon. And it doesn't matter...from what I hear you'll get your fight to the finish whether I like it or not."

"I don't follow you," Kreighen said.

"I've spoken to Romulans who've been trying to send communiques back to the Alpha Quadrant," he explained. "Every request gets blocked. It's always either too risky to open the transwarp conduits or there's some tachyon quantum interference or some other damned thing. As long as there's no way to receive orders from home, the decision to stay or retreat falls to Admiral Janeway. And if you ask me, that's exactly how she wants it."

"Pfah," Chorl grunted. "Romulan paranoia. If he spoke this way of _my_ commanding officer, Kreighen, I would kill him where he stands."

Kreighen of course did not kill him. Indeed, he didn't do much of anything while he considered the Romulan's words.


	5. Chapter 5

All the galaxy is divided into four parts. The United Federation of Planets, and its neighbors--the Klingon Empire, the Cardassian Union, the Romulan Star Empire, and dozens of other regional powers--were primarily located in a corner of the Alpha Quadrant. The people of this area were close enough to explore the nearest edge of the Beta Quadrant, but for all practical and political purposes this interstellar community was known simply as the Alpha Quadrant. In 2369, a stable wormhole was discovered linking the Bajor system in the Alpha Quadrant to the Idran system on the far side of the Gamma Quadrant, creating a new frontier for the Alpha Quadrant's explorers. However, the Gamma Quadrant's chief superpower, the Dominion, reacted negatively to this perceived incursion, and came to be at war with the Federation, the Romulans, and the Klingons. 

The Alpha Quadrant knew virtually nothing about the distant Delta Quadrant until the Federation starship _Voyager_ was lost there in 2371, and spent seven years exploring the region. Although _Voyager_ brought back data on many previously unknown forces in the Delta Quadrant (the Voth, the Hierarchy, the Vidiians) it's most impressive accomplishment was to have ventured into the territory a race which had already visited the Alpha Quadrant: The Borg.

Highly classified accounts of Borg activity in the Alpha Quadrant dated back to the late 21st century. By the 2350s rumors about them--a collective of cybernetic humanoids sharing a single consciousness and purpose like a superorganism, or an insect colony--swirled on the fringes of known space. Researchers seeking to learn more about them never returned from their expeditions. Tangible evidence of the Borg's existence did not surface until the mid-2360s, barely in time for the Federation to mount a defense against a single Borg vessel that decimated the Federation Starfleet in 2367. A second incursion in 2373 was nearly as catastrophic.

_Voyager_ changed the rules on how to think about the Borg Collective. Before 2378 it was a given that a lone Borg cube could lay waste to the Alpha Quadrant; now there was a record of a single Federation starship traversing Borg space and handing the hive mind disastrous setbacks again and again. _Voyager's_ Captain Kathryn Janeway had brokered truces with the Borg, she had liberated drones from the Borg, she had infiltrated the Borg, and she had defeated the Borg. In her daring mission to escape the Delta Quadrant, she severely crippled their transwarp network as a matter of course. Within a year of _Voyager's_ return, she was promoted to vice admiral.

In the years that followed, Starfleet achieved numerous scientific breakthroughs from data and concepts acquired by _Voyager_ , most notably the reverse-engineering of key pieces of Borg technology. But the work was unfocused, with few clear goals. In 2380 the Federation launched Project Yeager, which attempted to refine all of _Voyager's_ techniques for shortening its journey, including Borg transwarp conduits, into reproducible forms of propulsion. But this was largely an excuse to send diplomatic feelers to the Dominion--tests runs were flown between Bajor and Idran, with the intent of using the Bajoran wormhole as a safety net--and little pressure was felt to accomplish anything.

That changed on April 7, 2382. Until that day, it had been assumed that the Borg were largely defeated by Janeway at the Battle of Spatial Grid 986. _Voyager_ had destroyed their transwarp hub and infected the Collective with a neurolytic pathogen, and it was presumed that whatever remained of the Borg would be unable to menace the Alpha Quadrant. But on April 7--at stardate 59263.62--a solitary Borg cube again entered Federation space and blindsided the world of Bolarus IX. Starfleet was caught completely unprepared, with the bulk of its forces preoccupied with the Federation's frontier instead of its heart. By the time first respondents arrived, Bolarus IX had been completely assimilated, its surface terraformed into an industrial wasteland, its people infested with Borg nanoprobes, its resources rededicated to the production of more cubes. Any vessel coming within 2 AU of Bolarus IX was easily overwhelmed by the forces of an entire Borg world.

The threat posed by Bolarus IX was unmistakable, and throughout the Alpha Quadrant governments offered their support to the Federation effort to dislodge the Borg from their beachhead. The Cardassians were still rebuilding from their losses in the Dominion War, and were in no shape to contribute ships, but the Federation, Romulans, and Klingons pooled their resources to create a massive blockade, isolating the Bolarus system. This was merely a stopgap measure--the planet had to be invaded, and recaptured. The Alpha Quadrant had always been able to merely repel the Borg; it was ill-equipped to defeat them outright.

Or it would have been, if not for Admiral Janeway. Her unique perspective on the Borg now proved indispensable, as she led the newborn Alliance in creating new weapons and defenses. The Borg adapted, often instantaneously, to their foes, and _Voyager_ had only survived by attempting to do the same. Armor capable of resisting Borg weaponry was developed. Preventative medical treatments were employed to withstand the assimilation process. Subspace signals between Bolarus IX and the rest of the Collective were blocked. Research into methods of de-assimilating and rehabilitating Borg drones was tested on the few prisoners captured. Within six months of April 7, the allied fleet was able to withstand Borg sorties at closer distances, and had begun constricting the blockade. By 2383, bombing campaigns had allowed a ground war to commence. Having overcome the Borg aura of invincibility, the Alliance found overcoming the Borg themselves to be a relatively simple feat; the last Borg drone on Bolarus IX was disconnected from the hive mind in early 2384. The planet would never be the same, but neither would the Alpha Quadrant. The Borg could be defeated. The Borg could be conquered.

There was a temptation after the liberation to celebrate and return to business as it had been before the incursion. But Admiral Janeway would have none of it. On June 11, 2384 she delivered a speech before the Federation Council espousing what came to be known as the Janeway Doctrine. She related her victories against the Borg with _Voyager_ , and the critical advancements made during the Bolian War. The Borg were monolithic, she granted, but were only strategically nimble against opponents they already outclassed. The Federation and its major allies could no longer be considered anything less than equals to the Borg; resistance was now far from futile. The time had come, Janeway argued, to press the advantage, deploy a massive fleet of allied ships to the Delta Quadrant, and invade Borg space.

The speech was broadcast on hundreds of worlds, and it was commonly considered to have swayed public sentiment to support the war. But more than anything Janeway said, the spectre of Bolarus IX hung over every citizen of the quadrant, and it was understood that the Borg would never cease to be a threat until they were destroyed once and for all. The Janeway Doctrine merely offered a glimmer of hope that was a feasible task.

For the remainder of 2384 the buildup to war was omnipresent. Threats still existed within the Alpha Quadrant, and so the Alliance governments would have to quickly expand their fleets in order to hold territory at home and abroad. A diplomatic task force was dispatched the Beta Quadrant to seek assistance from Species 8472. Project Yeager was accelerated, and transwarp technology was perfected to the point that hundreds of ships could traverse the galaxy in a matter of hours. Once the armada was completely mobilized, space stations specially constructed for the rigors of the Delta Quadrant were established. Supply lines back to the Alpha Quadrant were all but completely restricted, to avoid the possibility of the Borg using the conduit to launch a counter-invasion.

The war officially commenced in 2385, with Janeway personally leading Alliance forces to stunning victories against unsuspecting Borg ships and outposts. As she had preached following Bolarus, the Borg offered little resistance; they rarely retaliated after a defeat, counting on their usual superiority to win the next battle for them, without a contingency plan if that failed. The Borg Collective's territory and resources were almost limitless, but their defensive tactics were virtually non-existent. Experts predicted the war would be won by 2390.

Those same experts _hadn't_ predicted that Borg would overrun the USS _Bonham_ , though, let alone a dozen other ships on the same day. Something had changed on this day, leaving Lieutenant Jacob Kreighen to ponder history aboard a Romulan Warbird, awaiting for new orders from Starfleet...


	6. Chapter 6

In the end the _Vreenak_ only recovered 23 survivors of the 7th Fleet, most of them from a single crippled Klingon bird-of-prey. True to Mejek's word, the warbird had intended to continue the search indefinitely, but it was given new orders to retreat to safer territory. Scuttlebutt on the _Vreenak_ had been that it was simply too dangerous to keep looking, and that Borg activity along the front was increasing. That sense of dread was far from isolated; Kreighen could smell it in the air the minute he walked through the airlock at D-19.

Delta Quadrant Orbital Command Station Nineteen was one of a few dozen space stations throughout the swath of territory the Alliance had captured from the Borg. Each of the Delta stations had to service entire fleets at a time, and yet be equipped to repel Borg attackers if no ships were available. Moreover, each station orbited a Class-M world liberated from the Borg, and had to be capable, if necessary, of policing billions of ex-drones on the surface. These considerations resulted in the Delta stations being designed as mammoth facilities, ranging around five kilometers long. It was here that Kreighen would learn his next mission.

Bartholomew Darsow was preoccupied with star charts when he arrived. "Ah, finally. Take a seat, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, Admiral. Sorry to keep you waiting...I was only just now told you wanted to debrief me personally."

"At ease, Mr. Kreighen--this isn't a snap inspection, I've just been impatient to get to the bottom of this business. You were with the USS _Bonham_?"

"Yes, sir."

Darsow sighed. "Captain Eadie was the best man at my wedding. Damn shame..."

"Sir, he may still be out there. The Romulans hadn't completed their search--"

"No, but they _are_ finished with it," Darsow snapped back. "I know that's your crew we're giving up on, Lieutenant, and I don't like it any more than you do, but if we send more ships out there we will _lose_ more ships out there. If you want to do something about it, the best place to start is by telling me what happened."

Kreighen was mindful of his place, but his eyes still flared as he gave his report. "The _Bonham_ joined the 7th Fleet at D-22. Our mission was to flush out any cubes patrolling Unimatrix 731, Grid 102 and create a perimeter cutting off Borg supply routes to the rest of the local subcomplex. Initially we found no Borg activity beyond a couple of scout ships, so we started laying out the blockade. That's when the cube showed up..."

"Were any of the ships cloaked?"

"No, sir--the blockade wasn't complete, cloaking would have made it difficult to coordinate the positions of the ships. When the cube dropped out of warp, stealth seemed unimportant. General Kargas gave the order to attack, and no one expected any difficulty subduing the cube. But as the first wave opened fire, the Borg shot back and crippled a bird-of-prey with one blast.

"At first we thought there was just something wrong with the bird-of-prey--maybe its shields were down or its engines malfunctioned. But the cube just kept firing, and every shot did massive damage to the first wave. The rest of the fleet began evasive maneuvers, trying to strafe along every surface of the cube. That didn't slow it down. It would target a different ship every second, and it only needed one shot for each ship. Our shields and hull armor were useless.

"After about twenty minutes half the fleet was dead in the water and we knew something was wrong. Kargas's ship took a bad hit and crashed into the side of the cube--half his hull was just sticking out of the thing, like a bee sting. That's when Captain Eadie took command of the fleet. He ordered the ships that still had impulse power to keep the cube occupied, while the disabled ships used their thrusters to move into place to fire whatever weapons they had available. We threw everything we had at it--I'm talking every torpedo, every nanovirus, every jammer that we'd brought to defend the blockade, spent on one lousy cube. After about an hour of fighting the Borg were in pretty rough shape, but it's like the old saying--"

"--'you should have seen the other guy,'" Darsow noted.

"Right. The cube was hitting us so hard that we couldn't finish it off. It started beaming drones into our ships. Captain Eadie gave a general order not to let the Borg capture anything--most of the ships we lost either self-destructed or set a collision course with the cube. By the time we abandoned the _Bonham_ I'm not sure there was anything left of the 7th but a few ejected warp coils and some escape pods."

Darsow was by now staring out the window in his office, into unfamiliar stars. "Did they learn anything from your attacks? Did they adapt?"

"I don't think so, Admiral. Our technology was either destroyed by their weapons or detonated against their hull. And their tactics were classic Borg. You'd think they were at Wolf 359 fighting twenty-year-old ships."

Darsow hung his head, then regained his composure as he turned to Kreighen. "You've been out of the loop for the past three days, Lieutenant, so you haven't heard the rumors. I may as well be the one to tell you, because it'll be official soon enough--your account is proof of that."

"Proof of what, sir?"

"We believe the Borg have found a way to assimilate Alliance technology. That's how they were able to adapt their weaponry to penetrate the 7th's ablative armor."

Kreighen stiffened in his seat. "I...thought we had developed defenses against assimilation."

"So did Allied Command," Darsow muttered. "The theory was that the Borg couldn't adapt to what they couldn't assimilate, so any robust anti-assimilation measure would itself be unknowable to them. We're still trying to figure out what's happened and how to defend against it. But the bottom line is that they've leveled the playing field. We can still hit them, but now they can hit us again. This war is about to get a lot more bloody. The 7th Fleet is only the beginning."

"So what's next? Will they find a way to improve their defenses? Are we back to square one here?"

Darsow rubbed his temples. "We don't know, Mr. Kreighen. That's where you come in."


	7. Chapter 7

Kreighen straightened in his chair. He set his jaw, and tried not to look anxious. But he was, and he couldn't deny it. Ever since he'd ejected from the _Bonham_ he'd been itching to get back into the war, to make the Borg pay...to stop them from taking away people's lives. Admiral Darsow was giving him the chance. "What do I have to do, sir?"

Darsow blinked, almost not understanding the question. "You've already done it, son. The drone you brought back with you... The dead one."

Kreighen froze, but the aggression in his posture slackened. "What about it?"

"The Romulan search party didn't turn up many survivors from the 7th Fleet," Darsow began, "and that's a tragedy. But from a tactical standpoint, the bigger issue was finding traces of the enemy. That drone you killed is the only thing the Borg seem to have left at the scene. It's the only evidence of _what_ destroyed the 7th, which makes it the only way we study _how_. Right now we've got every scientist in the sector poring over that Borg. I didn't even know the Klingons _had_ xenopathologists, but they're here today--everybody wants a piece. The Alliance is going to know everything this drone knew when it died, which is everything the Borg knew three days ago, which is how they beat our armor."

"Hooray for me, then." Kreighen said flatly.

"Don't sell yourself short, Mr. Kreighen. You may have saved the Alliance and the entire Alpha Quadrant." Darsow stepped behind his desk, and produced a Personal Access Display Device. "Now, I know you don't feel like a hero--"

"Admiral..."

Darsow held up his hand, making it clear he wouldn't seek Kreighen's permission to finish. "About thirty years ago, I was a junior engineer on the _Kyushu_ , and we were near Castal I during the Galen border conflicts. One day, we came under attack by a squadron of Talarian warships. Their weapons were no match for Starfleet's, even back then. But they'd fight to the death, and after a couple of them tried to ram us we lost forward shields long enough for the rest to target the bridge. All our senior officers were killed instantly--even our chief engineer had been on the bridge, because he'd been up in the saucer section playing poker when the attack started. The _Kyushu_ was essentially decapitated. 

"Well, there was nothing else to do but re-route bridge controls to engineering, and maneuver to keep the bow pointed away from the Talarians. Anyone could have done that, but everyone froze in the confusion, and I happened to be the first one to un-freeze. When I started piloting us away, it was somebody else who thought to use the aft phasers to shoot back at them. But everyone remembered I was the one to take charge of the situation--the crew agreed to put me in command until we limped to the nearest starbase. I got a Pike Medal of Honor and a promotion out of the whole thing. But I never once felt like I earned it--I was just some kid who had the sense to stay alive, and I was more concerned with the people we'd lost that I _hadn't_ saved.

"I'm telling you this, Mr. Kreighen, because nobody sat down and told it to me when I was being showered with citations. You don't think you're special for getting your butt out of trouble in one piece. But out here our mission is to get the Alpha Quadrant's butt out of trouble, so like it or not, you've shown proficiency at skills we need. Bill Eadie had those skills too, and he'd be damned if you weren't recognized for them." Darsow held up his PADD, preparing to read from it, before he noticed Kreighen still sullen in his chair. "This is the part where you stand up, Lieutenant."

The junior officer rose, and Darsow continued. "Lieutenant Jacob Angus Kreighen...by order of Starfleet Command, Delta Quadrant Operations Division, I hereby promote you the rank of lieutenant commander, with all the rights and privileges hereto." The admiral held up a fresh rank insignia pip, and affixed it to Kreighen's collar. "Congratulations."

The new lieutenant commander shook Darsow's hand quickly, hoping to get this matter over with. "Admiral, I...appreciate all of this. But what I really want is to receive my next orders. What's my next assignment?"

"I understand," the admiral said, for what felt like the twentieth time. "But I'm afraid I don't have any orders to give you for the moment."

"Sir...with...all due respect, ten minutes ago you told me that the Borg are massing along the front with weapons that can cut through our ships like grakel cheese. There must be something I can do to help."

"I told you: You've done your part, Mr. Kreighen. But the fact is that after losing the 7th Fleet Starfleet has to reorganize its personnel, and it'll take time to decide which crew needs you and where."

"Then forget the crew," the new commander snapped. "Give me a Flyer."

Darsow was growing impatient. "Delta Flyers are assigned in squadrons. Your record shows you were a fine helmsman on the _Bonham_ , Mr. Kreighen, but we don't put commanders in shuttles unless they're _commanding_ other shuttles. Right now all our squads have leaders."

Kreighen could take no more. "This is ridiculous! What am I supposed to do when the Borg come pouring into this star system? Sit around and watch?"

"To be blunt, Commander, that's exactly what you're going to do. I've tried to be understanding, but you need to cool off. Go to the O Club or hit the sack, I don't care. But when your reassignment comes in I'll be the one handing you the orders, and I expect you to live up to your new rank."

"Admi--"

"Dismissed." Darsow stepped away to his office window, clearly indicating that Kreighen was not to be in his sight when he turned back.

Lieutenant Commander Kreighen's hands clenched, outraged at the injustice of the situation. But he knew he couldn't fight this one. As he turned to the door, he remembered the comm-badges of M'rell and Ionescu in his pocket, and that he had meant to ask the admiral if a courier or buoy could send the effects back to their families via transwarp. That opportunity had clearly passed, though, and he continued out the door without a word.


	8. Chapter 8

> Personal Log, Lieutenant J--Lieutenant _Commander_ Jacob Kreighen, stardate 63010.9.
> 
> Yeah, that's gonna take some getting used to. When I hear "commander" I automatically think of Volok or Julie Crane...but it looks like they're gone along with the _Bonham_.
> 
> It's gotta be the strangest promotion I've ever had. Darsow looked like he wanted to take it back by the time I was done. I can't say I blame him. I've been thinking...I need to look at this promotion like it's meant for the whole ship, and I'm just the only one left to receive it. That's the only way I can feel like this pip was earned. Maybe that's what Darsow was trying to tell me. I don't know.
> 
> I probably do need to use this time on D-19 for R&R, but it's hard to cool my heels when all I want is to get back in the fight. If I at least knew when my orders would get here, that'd be something, but right now I'm just waiting to find out how long I'll be waiting. With my luck the Borg will blow up the whole station before I get reassigned. Better yet, they'll assimilate me and then they won't know what to do with me either.
> 
> Darsow acted like Starfleet wouldn't need me as a pilot. Now that I think about it, I've never heard of any helmsmen who were above full lieutenant. I suppose I never thought I'd make lieutenant commander, so it'd never come up. I'll probably end up being second officer on some new ship, dealing with obnoxious junior officers of my own--Crane would have loved that.

***

Ever since he and his ship had been deployed to the Delta Quadrant, it had seemed like there wasn't enough time to experience the entertainment facilities on the D-stations--there was always a battle to plan or an emergency to resolve. Now that he had nowhere else to be, D-19 seemed to offer Kreighen nothing.

He tried drinking at the officer's club, but too many people recognized him as the _Bonham_ survivor who killed the Borg drone, and it quickly became uncomfortable. A kal-toh match with a Vulcan offered a chance to get away from large crowds, but the game's difficulty did not suit his already short temper. Along the way someone recommended a holo-novel to him, but it turned out to be a simulation of 20th century Earth, just like the last five holodeck programs he'd seen.

The only activity that gave him any satisfaction was avoiding people. On a starbase the size of a small city, this proved to be most challenging, and he began to find sport in seeking the most remote sections of the station. He would sulk in an airlock or a Jefferies tube until some unsuspecting crewman would come along; then he would attempt to look busy, like he belonged there, until he saw an opportunity to find some other, more abandoned space.

Eventually he hit upon a discovery revolutionary to his "game". D-19 was the property of an interquadrant alliance at war with an army made entirely of slave labor; prisoners of war were thus liberated, not incarcerated. The first brig he found was indeed deserted.

Smiling to himself, he strolled past the empty cells, looking for one farthest from humanoid notice. What would he do when he got there? He didn't know--or care--as long as he was alone.

And so he froze the instant he saw a woman sitting in the cell at the back of the brig.

"What do you want?" she snarled. She was from Andoria, a Federation world, but she was wearing rather plain civilian attire instead of a Starfleet uniform.

He had played this game all over the station, and so he kept up appearances. "I'm...running an inspection," he explained.

"The weekly inspection of this brig was two days ago. The inspector is Ktarian."

Kreighen noticed the cell's force field was inactive. "Maybe he wasn't very good at his job. Are you waiting for him to come back before you escape?"

"I'm not here against--" She groaned to herself and glared at the human. "Why are you really here?"

"Look, I'm not trying to cause trouble. I'm off duty, I wanted to get away from everything, and this seemed like a place to try."

Her glower softened, slightly. "Why didn't you just go to your quarters, Commander?"

"I..." He started to chuckle. "I hadn't thought about it. I was getting into the challenge. What about you...why aren't you at your quarters, Ms....?"

"Lieutenant Tirava. And I don't have my own quarters, Commander. I'm a repatriate."

It was only now that Kreighen noticed the dark lines wrapping around the blue skin of her right arm, and the deep scar running from below her ear to just above her collarbone. There were undoubtedly more remnants of Borg implants deliberately kept out of sight by her clothing, and the long white hair hanging over either side of her face. "I'm sorry...I didn't know. But you're serving in Starfleet?"

The Andorian shook her head. "Inactive. I was a lieutenant aboard the USS _Tombaugh_ when it was assimilated by the Borg, twenty-four years ago. The Alliance found me when they liberated the drones in System 7723. But the official policy is to keep repatriates at arm's length from military operations."

"I thought Admiral Janeway had drones in her crew when she was commanding _Voyager_..."

Tirava shrugged. "On the _Voyager_ she didn't have to clear it with Starfleet Command, let alone the Romulans or the Klingons. I suppose being out of contact with the Alpha Quadrant has its advantages..."

"So what do you...what do you do now? I never really thought about how repatriates spend their time."

"Most of them focus on helping one another recover from assimilation. If they're from the Delta Quadrant, the Alliance sends them back to their homeworld...if they still have one. The rest stay planetside to rebuild what the Borg destroyed. I'm the liaison between 7723 and Starfleet, so I spend most of my time up here."

"At least they give you something to do," Kreighen offered.

She leapt to her feet and spat on the ground. "Take a good look at me, Commander. Everyone on this station just sees a Borg. But my blood is still blue, and my antennae have grown back from what those butchers did to me! I am _Andorian_! My parents fought the Tholians, my grandparents died at Tomed, Tzenketh, and Khitomer...I am a warrior, honor-bound to take vengeance for my crew and for myself." She threw her hands up in futility and slouched back to her seat. "But here I sit...forbidden to be anything except what the Borg made me."

Kreighen made no attempt to segue; it was virtually unnecessary. "My ship and my crew were lost this week. All they have to do-- _all they have to do!_ \--is put my ass on another assignment so I can get back out there..."

"Exactly." Tirava almost seemed angrier to hear that it was being done to another. "Do you have any idea how dull this place is?"

"No, I always visit the brig when I'm having fun," he smiled. "In fact I just saw a holo-novel about the ancient Earth Cold War..."

Tirava rolled her eyes and her antenna seemed to shrug. "Based on human fiction you'd think the entire history of the universe happened between 1901 and 2000." Her antenna probed forward as she changed the subject. "Tell me, Commander..."

"Krei--you know what, call me Jake. Anything but Commander."

"Jake..." she said, trying it out. "Do you know anything about anbo-jyutsu?"

Kreighen was intrigued. "Just that I broke my ankle in the only match I actually won."

"Don't take this the wrong way," she smirked, "but I've been aching to beat someone up, and you may be the only person on this station that I could trust myself not to kill." Her antennae pulled back a bit as she remembered her place. "...Sir."


	9. Chapter 9

Admiral Darsow burst out of the turbolift, his graying beard unkempt and his uniform disheveled. "Report," was all he said.

Commander Mintak was on duty during the night shift. "They entered sensor range approximately six minutes ago, Admiral. Based on their present course and speed, I estimate they will arrive in ninety-two minutes."

"How many cubes, Mintak?"

The Vulcan turned to the ensign manning the sensor array, who immediately sat a little straighter. "Three, sir--that is...so far we've detected three Borg warp signatures...but from this far away they may be clouding together."

Mintak rested a hand on the ensign's shoulder, and added his thoughts to let her off the hook. "Ship configurations are unknown as well, Admiral. Until we can ascertain each ship's mass, we'll be unable to gauge their firepower or defenses.

Darsow considered the situation, allowing himself only a few moments. "Tell the 21st to get their ships ready," he ordered Mintak before turning to the nervous junior officer "Ensign, radio Allied Command, let them know we're expecting an attack." The admiral slapped his commbadge purposefully. "Computer, locate Commander Nelev."

"Commander Nelev is on Recreation Level 12," the operating system responded calmly.

"At least one of us didn't get pulled out of bed," Darsow muttered. "Darsow to Nelev, respond."

"Nelev here," arose the disembodied voice from the comm-link.

"Our guests are finally arriving."

The Romulan wasn't fazed. "How many cubes?"

"Don't even know if they _are_ cubes yet, but at least three. I'm sending the 21st to intercept and get us more information. Divide their forces before they get to the station--slow down as many ships as you think you can handle. Let whatever's left over come to us."

"Understood. Nelev out."

Darsow rolled up his sleeves, planning his next decision. "Mintak, what's the status on the new hollow torpedoes?"

"The software is still in development, Admiral. No new updates from Doctor Ijhel."

"Well, her deadline just got bumped up." He struck his commbadge again. "Darsow to Ijhel."

No answer.

**"Admiral Darsow to Doctor Ijhel. Respond immediately."**

He was about to try again when he finally got an answer. "Admiral, this _really_ isn't the best time--"

"I don't need you to tell me that, Doctor--the Borg are pouring into this sector and I need as many weapons as I can throw at them. Now would be a great time to tell me your program is ready to deploy."

"I...I'm at a critical juncture here, Admiral, if you can give me another two hours I'm sure I can have something--"

"One hour, Doctor. One."

"Maybe you don't understand," she said, though she sounded quite certain he didn't. "I'm not one of your Starfleet engineers adding time spent drinking to his estimate. You don't get to haggle with--"

"Tell it to the Borg, Ijhel, they're the ones setting the timetable. One hour. Darsow out." He leaned over a console and began rubbing his forehead. "Civilians..."

"Admiral," Mintak interrupted. "Shall I put the station on red alert?"

"We don't even know what we'd be going to red alert for, Mintak. Until Nelev checks things out, for all we know those ships are rebels from Unimatrix Zero."

"Highly improbable, sir."

"I know," he sighed. "Yellow alert for now, Commander."

***

Nelev strode onto the bridge of the _Vreenak_ , halting the chaos of a dozen officers scrambling through the pre-flight checklists. "What's our status, Subcommander?"

Mejek dropped everything he was doing to greet her with a formal salute. "Nearly ready, Commander. Two of the Flyer squads were shorthanded--I've been arranging substitutions with the 9th Fleet."

"Get it done," she replied. She took her seat in the center of the bridge and pulled up sensor logs from D-19. The latest readings now showed no less than five Borg ships. Given that one cube had been enough to best the 7th, this many vessels would be overkill for any mission short of recapturing the entire star system. Nelev motioned to her communications officer. "Open a channel to the fleet," she instructed.

"All ships, this is Commander Nelev. Our orders are to keep part of the Borg fleet busy, to give D-19 a fighting chance against the rest. We still don't know what we'll be facing out there, but we do know they can penetrate our defenses, so don't take the enemy lightly. When possible, stay out of their range and use nonconventional attacks. Once you've taken out a ship's propulsion, move on to the next one; we'll finish them off once D-19 is secure, not before." 

She gestured to have the comm-link muted. "Subcommander?"

Mejek nodded. "It's confirmed. The _Stingray_ and the _Silver Moon_ are set to replace the _Zarkov_ and the _Laserbeak_. Starfleet squadrons now prepped for departure."

"All ships, prepare to leave spacedock." Nelev looked to her helmsman. "Take us out, Uhlan..."


	10. Chapter 10

Commander Nelev sat motionless on the bridge of the _Vreenak_ , staring holes into the viewscreen showing the space lying ahead. It was as if she hoped to take measure of the Borg before the long-range sensors could.

The fact of the matter was that there was nothing left for her to do. The 21st fleet was cruising at warp factor nine, with the basics of a strategy already laid out. The only critical decision remaining was to determine how many Borg vessels the fleet could keep from reaching Station D-19. Whatever that number would prove to be, Nelev knew, her orders would be to engage more. Admiral Darsow had most likely anticipated that when he ordered her to intercept the Borg, and her fleet most likely shared her viewpoint. Since the war had begun, the Borg had only been pushed back by the Alliance, never regaining lost territory. They could not be allowed to recapture System 7723, if only for the cost to morale. And so Nelev, and most of the men and women under her command, would likely die on this day.

She was at peace with this; she had been from the start of the war. Of the possible fates awaiting her, assimilation was the most troublesome--the thought of having one's defenses lowered, of one's own thoughts being exploited against one's interests, was a nightmare to any Romulan. Death was not so troublesome. To be sure, she was hardly as eager to face death as the Klingons in her fleet. But she could look back at her career in the Romulan Guard and feel that she had accomplished enough. She had two fine sons back home; she could only hope that word of her noble sacrifice in battle would give them great political advantage someday. Of course, in years to come the public would only recall the war heroes who died most spectacularly, and successfully.

"Commander," Uhlan Kijich announced. "The _Albion_ is reporting it has full sensor readings of the approaching vessels. Ten cubes."

Nelev smiled. Her sons might well end up in the Romulan Senate at this rate. "All ships, this is Nelev. We have ten cubes on the way. I only want D-19 to meet five of them. Ready attack sequence kappa."

***

Whether in the Battle of Wolf 359 or the Species 8472 War, Borg tactics were always rudimentary, owing to the Collective's simplistic view that its forces were both infallible and disposable. Given the task of recapturing System 7723 from the Alliance, as few ships as necessary would be sent to complete this objective. That the Borg thought D-19, the 21st, _and_ the 9th could offer enough resistance to warrant even five cubes, let alone ten, was high praise indeed. These ships would then proceed--in no great hurry, because time is of little consequence if you don't think you can lose--directly to the target, allowing very little to distract them. With the target acquired, the ships would attack nonstop, regardless of the outcome. If defeated, the Collective would simply deploy more ships at its convenience relying on the hive mind to learn from the mistakes of the first attack. 

Exploiting the weaknesses of this approach had given the Alliance a string of total victories in the first eleven months of the current war. The development of weapons and defenses the Borg could not assimilate or study was crucial, because it denied them their sole strategic virtue, their adaptability. If you shoot at a cube long enough with the same weapon, and its crew will quickly formulate a defense. But if you cripple their ability to do that in the first shot, they'll be at your mercy. The next cube might be observing this and developing its own adaptations, but if you disrupt their communications that won't be so easy. The key to defeating the Borg was to attack them in a way that left them no opportunity to learn from the attack. This key unlocked their singular vulnerability--even when demonstrably outmatched, they were not programmed to withdraw. They would march headlong into certain doom until or unless they hit upon a solution.

In spite of the technological advancements the Borg used to annihilate the 7th Fleet, the hardest part of the 21st Fleet's mission was not engaging five of the ten cubes but rather getting them to break out of their intercept course for D-19. To get any of the ships to drop out of warp would require presenting the Borg with something they perceived as a threat to their overall mission; otherwise all ten cubes would fly past the 21st without so much as a parting shot. A head-on confrontation would be difficult at warp speed. The 21st had to race past the enemy fleet, then come about and attack from the rear until at least five could be goaded into the fight.

Nelev's plan was to ensure this goading caused as much damage as possible. As the _Vreenak_ led seventeen ships from the fleet behind the cubes, a dozen of the largest battleships sped ahead, matching the speed of a cube in the middle of the pack and encircling it. On cue, all twelve ships fired their tractor beams at different points on the cube, then drastically reduced speed. This tractor "lasso" destabilized the cube's warp field, causing it to lose speed and careen towards one of the ships behind it. The IKS _Qul'etlh_ and the USS _Fleming_ were caught between these two cubes, and instantly destroyed in the ensuing collision. Nonetheless, both Borg vessels were now critically damaged and out of warp, giving rise to cheers throughout the 21st.

"Defiant wing beta," Nelev broadcast to her ships, "Stay on those two and don't let them recover. All other ships, concentrate fire on the closest cube."

Six Starfleet warships peeled out of formation as the remaining nineteen ships launched torpedoes into the cube at the rear of the pack. Each blast rocked the vessel, until finally the Collective could brook no further insolence and assigned two cubes to fall out of warp to deal with the 21st.

The Romulan commodore watched the cubes come into place, waiting for the perfect moment to give the next order. "Now, K'vort wings!" Twenty Klingon bird-of-preys emerged from the blackness of space, outflanking the two cubes.

Nejev's heart was pounding. "Battleships, resume pursuit of the fleet--I want that fifth cube!" She turned to her first officer. "Coordinate with the other ships, Mejek. I want a cascade of jammer signals until these two are destroyed, then--"

An explosion erupted on the bridge of the _Vreenak_. The fifth cube had not waited to be stopped by force, and had dropped out of warp of its own accord. It had mortally wounded the 21st's flagship with its first shot. The second would come soon enough.


	11. Chapter 11

The fate of the _Vreenak_ was now sealed. The power relays fused by the Borg's first shot had left the Romulan warbird with nothing to propel itself but maneuvering thrusters. The vessel would be lost; only swift action could save its crew.

The Starfleet cruisers had by now opened their shuttlebays, releasing swarms of _Delta Flyer_ -class fighters. Based on prototypes built by the crew of _Voyager_ during its original journey through the Delta Quadrant, this type of shuttle was extremely maneuverable and resilient for its size; squadrons of these fighters could not only stand up to a Borg cube but confound its one-target-at-a-time tactics. By rote, all three cubes began targeting the Flyers, leaving the larger ships alone for the moment.

It was a lucky break for the _Vreenak_ and Commander Nelev knew it. Her own chair had toppled over, pinning her to the floor in the explosion, and two sublieutenants had to help her to her feet. She knew there would be no time for a full damage report. "Helm!" she snapped as she wiped green blood from her lip. "Evasive pattern rho--get us to the back of the fleet." She turned back to her first officer. "As I was saying--"

But Subcommander Mejek would not carry out her orders. He lay dead near his post, killed in the blast. Nelev shut the loss out and addressed the tactical station herself. "Tell the cruisers to fall back with us and form a perimeter around the cubes," she explained to the centurion impatiently. We'll jam their link to the Collective."

That move would take several long minutes to coordinate, however. In the meantime, the battleships pounded away at the cubes. The Borg retaliated at random, constantly switching targets--they were hardwired to believe this was a safe strategy, and so they would not consider that they were taking more hits than they inflicted. That effect blunted Alliance losses, but further casualties were assured. The cubes' scattershot attacks frequently hit ships, destroying some and sidelining others. Given enough time the Borg could destroy every ship in the fleet; the 21st could only make every moment and every shot count in the hopes of killing the Borg first.

Commander Nelev anxiously watched the battle as it shrank away from the _Vreenak_ 's aft sensors. "Where's my perimeter, Centurion?"

"We're waiting on the _SaQ vo'Hov_ , Commander. As soon as it's in place we can blanket all three cubes...got it--"

"Broadcast!" she thundered. There was a slight whine in the air as the signal climbed to the correct subspace frequency, before going totally silent. Within seconds, one of the three cubes began to break off its attack, maneuvering in an agitated fashion.

Nelev smiled. "Get me Colonel Daqtem," she ordered.

"Channel open," answered the centurion.

A proud, battle-weary Klingon presided across the viewscreen, ignoring the deep gash over his eye. "Commander," he boomed. "I have nineteen boarding parties awaiting your order."

"I think you know which cube to send them to," Nelev smirked. "Just make sure your warriors secure the Borg arsenal _before_ they go dying with honor."

"Rest assured, Commander, they shall not fail. _Qapla'!_ "

Nelev could scarcely conceive of that cube's impending predicament--suddenly cut off from the hive mind, with two hundred bloodthirsty Klingons beaming in, armed to the teeth with sharp instruments. Secure that she could dismiss the threat posed by that ship, she focused her attention on the remaining two.

However, the jamming signal had not disoriented this pair as completely as the third. The effectiveness of the jammer varied from cube to cube--upon loss of contact with the Collective, some drones succumbed to chaos immediately, while others maintained enough sense of their directive to carry on. The best hope for the 21st now was to keep the jam going to prevent the drones from contacting the hive mind for further instructions. That would keep the two cubes from becoming more dangerous, but they were already dangerous enough--by Nelev's estimation the Borg's weapons had already neutralized about half of the fleet. Still, she thought, with just a little more luck...

"Commander!" the centurion at tactical exclaimed. "Incoming vessels on the aft sensors."

Nelev tensed. The ships of Defiant Wing Beta might have finished off their quarry prematurely. "Starfleet?"

"Borg--" The centurion did not complete his report. The two Borg cubes thought irreparably hobbled and left for dead had not only overpowered Defiant Wing Beta but had regained limited warp speed. They were in weapons range before the 21st could react, and their primary objective was now to destroy the ships jamming communications to the three cubes within the perimeter. A solitary, sustained cutting beam tore through the _Vreenak_ , breaching its warp reactor and transforming it into an enormous fireball. The cruisers alongside it turned to retaliate, but soon shared her fate. The 21st was now outflanked.

Disaster followed disaster. With the jamming signal interrupted, the cube being raided by the Klingons regained its attitude control and rejoined the battle. Although the intruders on this vessel limited its performance, it nonetheless brought the total number of cubes firing upon the 21st Fleet to five. The remaining battleships engaged the two newly arrived cubes, hoping to finish them off quickly and regain the advantage. But as the fleet's numbers dwindled, the Borg had fewer targets to fire upon, and thus their attacks became more focused and deadly.

Ten minutes after the _Vreenak_ 's destruction, the fleet was all but routed. One cube was finally destroyed when three heavy cruisers plunged into it; another succumbed to more incremental damage to its transwarp coil. The Klingon marauders were joined in their raid by survivors from other ships, but in the end they succeeded not in commandeering the cube but in forcing it to self-destruct. By the end only two ships emerged from the battle, both of them Borg.

Silently these two cubes resumed course towards D-19, leaving behind the what was once the 21st Fleet.


	12. Chapter 12

This time when Kreighen awoke, the bed was really a bed, and the woman beside him really was a woman. And a Borg.

That wasn't fair, he told himself. It was clear to him that most people saw Tirava primarily as a repatriated drone, and that it was a sore spot for her. It had been less of an issue with him, perhaps because of their common frustrations. Perhaps that had been what she'd seen in him. Certainly after six rounds of anbo-jyutsu he'd seen a lot more than a Borg drone in her. She was an indomitable Andorian soldier, and as much in need of a pleasant diversion as he.

Her antennae twitched as she began to stir. "I'm still here," Kreighen assured her.

"We're in your quarters," she muttered as she propped herself up. "I wasn't expecting you to leave."

Kreighen shrugged and put his arm around her. "I suppose there are advantages to being unassigned. Neither of us has anywhere to be..."

Tirava rolled her head against his arm, trying to work out the kinks. "It'd be more advantageous if I weren't so damned sore"--she stopped short and glared at him--" _from the anbo-jyutsu match_. You're good, pinkskin, but I don't want you to get a swelled head."

"Likewise," Kreighen smirked. 

His gaze began to drift as he caught sight of the bedsheet slipping from her chest. Tirava followed his eyes, until she realized what he could see--remnants of Borg implants ran across her cyan flesh, connected by faint circuit patterns to a module near her heart. Embarrassed, she jerked the sheet up to her neck, and turned away.

"Wait..." Kreighen struggled for the right words. "It...it's okay. It's not like I didn't see it last night..."

She was beginning to leave when she stopped and sighed. "I know...but it was easier not to think about it before...I could just give in to the moment and be..."

"A woman?"

"An _individual_. Trust me, Jake, I counsel the ex-drones down on the planet--it's the same for the men as the women. Some of them have coupled with one another...but in a way they're hiding behind one another's shame. I think all of us have wondered if we'd ever be able to be with someone...normal..."

Kreighen held her close and searched for something to say. "Look...they tried to take away everything that makes you you. Don't let them take this away too."

She was too proud, too Andorian to cry. But her antennae dipped a bit at the sentiment before she found it within herself to recover from her self-doubt. "You," she smiled, "are an excellent conquest, Commander."

"I told you not to call me 'Commander,'" he chided, half-seriously. "Wait. What do you mean by 'conquest'?"

The question was interrupted by a piercing siren emitting from the communications system. Warm lights strobed throughout the room. D-19 was at red alert, and Kreighen and Tirava could immediately guess why.

Kreighen instinctively moved in the shortest path between himself and his skivvies, which happened to mean climbing over his Andorian lover off the bed and to the floor. Once he was even remotely dressed, he opened the door and peered down the corridor. Starfleet personnel were pouring through, impatiently on their way to battlestations. He caught the sleeve of a Bajoran woman and got her attention. "What's going on?"

"The Borg are coming," she gasped. "At least five cubes. The 21st Fleet was sent to intercept, but no one's heard from them since..." She looked away to someone summoning her, and then pulled herself away from Kreighen's grip. He watched her hurry away into the gathering throng, letting the information sink in.

When he returned to Tirava, she was on her feet, stark naked, picking her clothes out of the pile of discarded anbo-jyutsu body armor. As before, her passion for the moment had erased her qualms about the sight of her cybernetic implants. "Do you know where the escape pods are located?" he asked her.

"Not on this deck, but they won't take long to find. Do you think it'll come to that?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But I want to make sure you're safe before I go..."

"Go?" She pulled her tunic over her head. "Go _where_ , Jake? You're off-duty! Ten minutes ago you were talking about making love all day long..."

Kreighen zipped up the front of his jumpsuit. "I can't sit in my quarters while the Borg break through our defenses! I've got to see what I can do to help..." He stopped to look at her, then seizing the moment reached to sweep her into his arms and kiss her goodbye.

Tirava caught him in mid-move and reversed it into a hammerlock, then drove him to the ground. "I'm not one of your females, pinkskin," she stated flatly.

"I keep noticing that," Kreighen replied, flat on his face.

"Let's get something clear. If you're seriously going to find your way into the battle, I'm not going to sit in your quarters pining for your return. I'm coming with you."

"With me?"

"You're not the only one who needs to get back in the battle," she answered as she pulled him back to his feet. "They may not let me have a uniform but I'm still a Starfleet lieutenant."

"Twenty-four years is a long time to be away from the game, though--"

"The weapons may have changed, but you still aim and shoot. We're _not_ negotiating, Jake."

He rubbed his shoulder and chose his next words very carefully. "OK, you win." He reached into his pocket and found one of the commbadges he'd recovered from his fallen comrades, and handed it to the Andorian. "We need to get to the spacedock before all the ships are gone."

As he turned to the door, Tirava pulled him back. "One more thing," she declared, then pulled him into a deep, firm embrace of her own.

"If we're staying together," Kreighen said once he could come up for air, "Why do _you_ get to do the big kiss goodbye?"

"That wasn't a goodbye," the lieutenant huffed. "That was just because I felt like it. Lead the way, Commander..."

"... _Jake_ ," he insisted. Not for the first time, Kreighen wondered what he'd gotten himself into...


	13. Chapter 13

Of the ten Borg cubes sent to attack D-19, a total of seven had arrived by way of eliminating the 21st Fleet. All that remained to hold the line were the 9th Fleet and D-19 itself. In practice a space station did not have to defend itself often, as it was usually hosting a number of ships that could attend to that task. But when necessary, a starbase had enough armaments to withstand an entire invasion force. And D-19 in particular had been built to resist the Borg.

Admiral Darsow stood in the station's operations center, watching the Borg arrive. He couldn't help but imagine Commander Nelev had been in a very similar situation before she met her end. She'd presumably done her part, as three cubes had failed to arrive. Now he had to finish what she started. He looked to Mintak at tactical. "Status?"

"The 9th Fleet is assembled and ready, sir," the Vulcan reported. "Standing by to raise shields."

"Do it. Can we use the jammers yet?" 

"Negative...the cubes' current formation would prevent the fleet from forming a perimeter--at least one ship would keep the others linked to the Collective."

"I want to know the minute that changes, Commander." Darsow looked to his communications officer. "Hail the fleet." A telltale chirp sounded and he began his orders. 

"All ships, this is Darsow. You can bet that the Borg will focus their offense against the station. Do not--repeat, do not seek to draw away their fire. Take as many free shots as they'll give you...we'll try to keep them busy. Darsow out."

He leaned against a railing, squeezing the banister in his hands as if to strangle it. "Attack pattern tau, Commander. Don't give any of those cubes a chance to think about swatting the mosquitoes on their backs."

The station's weapon arrays hummed to life, launching a terrible onslaught of cutting-edge weaponry against the seven attackers. Up to this moment, the Borg had been on the defensive throughout the war, doing battle only with starships. Only now would they be faced with this firepower at such a great magnitude. Bio-pulse beams inspired by Species 8472 lanced out from the station towards each cube. A flood of nano torpedoes rained against their hulls, delivering payloads of anti-Borg technopathogens.

The 9th Fleet did its part, circling behind the Borg and launching its rear attack, strafing each cube with torpedoes and polaron beams. The results were impressive, but time-consuming. It was like striking a block of ice with claw hammers; the strategy was only effective so long as the block didn't fight back. Moreover, each Borg vessel was so decentralized that damage sustained on one face of the cube had little impact on the functionality of another. It would be hours before the 9th could meaningfully reduce the Borg's ability to attack D-19.

It would not, however, take hours for the Borg to destroy D-19. Still presuming the luxury of time--a luxury they could now afford with their adapted weapons--the cubes deployed tractor beams to strain the station's shield generators. The starbase shook under the attack, but never relented in its return fire. Forces on both sides of the deadlock suffered structural damage and hull breaches. But this was not a contest D-19 could win. The Alliance needed a game-changer.

***

Kreighen and Tirava were among the last to reach the spacedocks, and it was only there that their dilemma would reveal itself. The starships that were still docked were inaccessible without proper clearances. As a newly minted lieutenant commander, Kreighen might yet have been able to bluff his way through, but bringing along a former Borg drone would be out of the question. That left the shuttlebays, which were more easily accessible and largely unguarded given the attention to the Borg attack. But by the time they reached the main shuttlebay, it was empty--every ship had been pulled into the 9th Fleet.

"Dammit!" Kreighen shouted on the bay floor. He was answered by a tremor as the Borg tractor beam buffeted the station.

"We can still help somehow," Tirava argued. "I'm sure they're busy in engineering, or maybe Darsow needs a hand in ops..."

"No," he insisted. "I had to get out there and--" He paused and thought for a moment. "Of course..." Striding to the nearest console, he began entering queries into the computer. "There are six ships in Repair Bay 12...three Type 8 shuttles...a runabout with a dead warp core...and two Delta Flyers."

"So what? If those ships could fly they wouldn't be in the repair bay."

"If they're in the repair bay," he retorted as he took her hand, "then odds are someone's been fixing them. Come on..."

When they arrived in the repair bay, they quickly took stock of the selection available to them. The runabout's warp core was strewn across the bay in pieces, eliminating that candidate right away. The Type 8 shuttles only had minor damage, but they were of little use beyond short-range excursions from a larger vessel. The Flyers were the best bet. The _Mayweather_ looked as disheveled as the runabout, but that reinforced Kreighen's hopes--the repair crew had probably stripped out its parts to repair its sister shuttle, the _Hrunting_.

"Even if we get this thing working," Tirava observed, "what are you going to do? Ask ops to lower their shields long enough for you to fly us out?"

"Look, the way things are going..." He was cut off by another, larger tremor, and he gestured in reference to it. "The way things are going, the Borg will make sure the shields aren't an issue." Kreighen typed in a set of access codes to open the hatch.

Inside, a Starfleet engineer was prostrate across the deckplate.


	14. Chapter 14

"What happened to him?" Tirava asked about the engineer sprawled on the floor of the shuttle.

Kreighen was tired of running into snags in his plan. "Maybe he hit his head on something when the attack started. It doesn't matter--give me a hand with him." 

He was pulling the fallen man out into the repair bay when the announcement came from ops: "Attention. All non-essential personnel, commence evacuation procedures. This is not a drill. Repeat, all non-essential personnel..."

Tirava watched Kreighen continue for a moment before objecting. "Jake, we can't just leave him here."

"We can't take him with us!"

"What difference does it make if you rush off into battle with an unconscious engineer in the back seat?"

He stammered for a moment, trying to think of a rebuttal, then gave up and started pulling the man back. "Fine. Any other passengers you want me to pick up?"

"Not until we make sure this wreck is spaceworthy," she answered dismissively. Heading to the shuttle's cockpit, Tirava found the ops station and ran through the specs of the _Hrunting_. "There's only one escape pod on this thing..."

Kreighen walked past her to the helm. "I don't plan on needing _any_ escape pods ever again, so one is a surplus." He began entering sequences to open the repair bay's space doors. "Unless you've found a warp breach, I'm taking us out."

"Aye, Comma--" she caught herself before he could. "Aye aye, Jake, sir."

Kreighen didn't waste time depressurizing the bay, and so when the space doors opened a swarm of equipment and spare parts was blown out into space along with the _Hrunting_. The controls of Delta Flyers were custom-designed for each shuttle's pilot; as this one had not been assigned to Kreighen it was not a perfect fit. But he had been a flight controller his entire career, and soon he had mastered the spacecraft.

"Well, we're not dead yet," he mused, "so this bucket can't be too badly damaged."

"All the more reason to rescue the repairman." She went through her console readouts, managing all of the key systems that weren't assigned to the pilot's seat. It was a challenge--Tirava had been a weapons officer on the _Tombaugh_ , and although she was trained for the ops station a lot had changed in the twenty-four years since her assimilation. "When he comes to I'll have a job waiting for him."

"You'll have to muddle through a little longer--engage the cloaking device."

"Uhh..."

"Bring up the tactical interface, you can't miss it."

"Jake, I don't think this ship _has_ a cloak."

" _Every_ ship in the Allied armada has a cloak, Tirava. An exception was added to the Treaty of Algernon, for the war--"

"No, I mean, I think somebody ripped the cloaking device out of its housing!"

"And you _just now_ noticed this?"

"It wasn't standard procedure to check your cloaking device in 2362!"

Kreighen started to yell at the Andorian, but reminded himself that she wasn't to blame. "All right," he sighed. "Scan for high concentrations of tetryons...maybe it was lying around in the repair bay and we can beam it over."

"Scanning..."

Long minutes passed. Kreighen wanted to put as much distance as possible between the ship and D-19, but at the same time he couldn't risk moving out where the Borg could see him. More crucially, he couldn't venture too far until they knew the cloak was within transporter range. 

Tirava finally gave an update. "Jake, remember when I said there was only one escape pod on this shuttle?"

"Yes. Remember when I told you I didn't care?"

"It's out in space. I think it must have jettisoned while we were leaving the repair bay."

"How could--?"

"I'm getting life signs...too close to the source of the tetryons for a better reading, but--"

"But somebody wanted to swipe a cloaking device and thought they could make a getaway once the shuttle launched," Kreighen concluded. "Beam the contents of the pod right into the cockpit."

Tirava began to question these orders, then decided there was no use. She locked a transporter beam onto the escape pod, and energized, materializing a humanoid form hunched over a large case. Tirava was unarmed, or she would have leveled a phaser at the thief; for the moment she would have to rely on her formidable martial prowess. "Get up," she commanded.

It was a Cardassian woman, more petite in her build than the statuesque Andorian, so she offered no resistance--at least, not physically. "You're not Starfleet," the interloper presumed. "What's going on here?"

From the helm, Kreighen interrupted before his comrade could strike the woman. "Your little scheme didn't work, lady, so hopefully you're as good at installing cloaking devices as you are at taking them out. Take her to the aft section, Tirava. And see if you can wake up that engineer--we may need his help."

***

Nathan Jimenez awoke to the sensation of a hypospray pressed against his throat, and found himself on the floor of the shuttle he'd been working on. The last he knew, yellow alert had been raised on D-19, and the 21st Fleet was beginning to mobilize. He was performing an inspection on the _Hrunting_ before replacing the rest of its escape pods, and then nothing. He looked up to see the Andorian woman holding the medical instrument, who was more interested in the Cardassian fiddling with a console.

"Cardassians. They told me we're at peace now, but I should have known better."

"I would hardly call the theft of a single cloaking device a major treaty violation."

"What did you hope to accomplish? Were you just going to cloak your escape pod and sit there invisibly while the Borg overwhelmed the sector?"

"Miss...Tirava, is it? I'm not out to undermine your precious Alliance. Quite the contrary, I'm the only one who can save it. But in your government's infinite wisdom I was stationed at the doorstep of the enemy, where all my work to defeat them was in maximum jeopardy. I simply recognized that defending the station was hopeless and decided not to wait for the Alliance to effect my salvation...which by the way will be the Alliance's salvation well."

"Right now your salvation depends on this ship, so--"

Jimenez felt a massive blast, and judging from his vantage point so had the two women. They glared at one another, silently putting their differences aside long enough to check on the situation in the cockpit. He was already recovering from whatever had knocked him out--perhaps the Cardassian, from the sound of things--and felt confident enough to stand. When his legs didn't give out beneath him, he made his way to the cockpit himself, to learn everything that was going on.

When he entered the forward section, he found the Andorian and the Cardassian standing over a Starfleet officer at the helm, giving them the news. "--station just suffered a catastrophic explosion. Probably the fusion reactors. I barely got us far enough to ride out the shockwave." 

Jimenez felt his stomach knot up--he'd been working on D-19 since the station was first constructed. "Isn't there something we can do?" he pleaded.

"It's too late," the helmsman answered as the _Hrunting_ came about on a new heading. The enormous space station--grievously wounded and still being pounded by the Borg--was now in view. "D-19 can't recover from that damage. We're lucky we got out in one piece. Is the cloaking device operational?"

"I think she got it re-installed," the Andorian said as she gestured to the Cardassian, and then to Jimenez, "but I wouldn't count on it to keep us hidden. I'd feel better if I knew he'd taken a look."

The helmsman turned to face him for the first time. "You heard the lady, Ensign."

"Wait a minute," Jimenez argued. "What's the point of using the cloaking device now?" He pointed to the intense battle between a few hundred kilometers away. "The Borg already know the fleet is here."

"We're not joining the fleet, Ensign." With that, the helmsman activated the cloak and engaged a course he only he knew. The _Hrunting_ jumped into its maximum warp speed, abandoning the 9th Fleet to its fate.


	15. Chapter 15

"What do you mean, we're not joining the fleet?" the young ensign demanded. "Where are you taking us?"

Lieutenant Commander Kreighen set the _Hrunting_ 's auto-navigation and turned to face his "crew". Tirava's antennae were tensing--she was no less dubious than the others. The Cardassian who had tried to steal the shuttle's cloaking device had no argument with fleeing the battle, but was suspicious that a Starfleet officer would share her sentiment. The human ensign was simply unable to process the idea of a senior officer abandoning his duty. "What's your name, Ensign?"

"Jimenez...Nathan Jimenez."

"Jimenez, we're not winning this war anymore. The Borg have adapted their weapons to penetrate our defenses. A few days ago they obliterated the 7th Fleet--it's a safe bet the 21st is gone too. Even if the 9th pulls out a miracle, D-19 is done for. There won't be anything to fight over."

"There's a planet full of former Borg drone back there too, Jake," Tirava pointed out. It was a natural concern for the Andorian; she had been one of them. "Are they not worth fighting over?"

Kreighen was steely-eyed as he addressed his recent lover. "Destroying a starbase and assimilating a planet are two different things. To capture the planet they have to eventually get out of their little boxes and begin a ground invasion. There's a billion people down there immunized against assimilation; the Borg will have the work cut out for them."

She was unconvinced. "You don't know that--!"

"It doesn't matter, Tirava. A lot more planets and starbases are going to be in danger until the Alliance learns how the Borg countered the ablative armor and develops a new defense. The dead drone I brought back to D-19 was the only specimen the Alliance had to work from, and now it's gone. That's probably why the Borg targeted the station in the first place. We need to get another specimen."

The Cardassian's eyes widened. "Are you saying we're headed _into_ Borg space?"

"D-19 was the front line," Kreighen answered coldly. "We've _been_ in Borg space since we went into warp."

"This is ridiculous!" Jimenez protested. "If you wanted another Borg, there were thousands of them in those cubes attacking the station!"

"You're not getting it, Jimenez. The Alliance has the same sort of rigid priorities as the Borg. The 9th Fleet's primary objective was to defend D-19, then defeat the Borg, then mop up and look for anything exploitable in the aftermath. I'm thinking big picture: The Alliance can't wait for one of its fleets to get lucky enough to repel a Borg assault first and then collect data. The drone I brought back came at...at a very high price, and even then I almost didn't make it back with the damn thing. Somebody has to go out with the sole mission of capturing a drone and making it back alive." He took a breath, letting the others absorb his argument. "I nominate me."

The Cardassian woman nodded. "I think I can understand that."

"I really don't care if you do, lady."

"Ijhel," she announced. "Doctor Utana Ijhel, of the Cardassian Science Ministry. After the Dominion War, my government lacked the military support to join the Alliance, but it saw fit to provide a corps of civilian scientists to assist with the war effort."

"Spare me the history lesson," Kreighen huffed.

"I thought perhaps your Andorian friend might need it," Ijhel countered, "since she seems to be about two wars behind on Cardassian-Federation relations." Tirava winced at her. "As I was saying, Commander, I respect your obligations to your state, and your conclusion that its best interests lie outside conventional channels. I doubt Starfleet will share that perspective, but my people will appreciate what you're doing to protect the Alpha Quadrant."

"Consider my ass sufficiently kissed, Doctor. Get on with it."

"Yes, well, I cannot accompany you on this mission. In my own way, I'm as critical to regaining the advantage in this war as you are. If I'm killed by the Borg, well...it was be a catastrophe for all our people."

"You keep saying that," Tirava grumbled. "What makes you so special?"

"I'm sure at least one of you is familiar with the technology behind the hollow torpedoes...and their limitations..."

Jimenez was. "Well, they work like they're designed, but they're too research-intensive. For all the work that goes into programming them, you don't get a big enough bang for your buck. It's more efficient to use standard ordinance."

"Exactly. My mission is to reprogram the software for the payload--"

"Good," Kreighen interrupted. He fished the lone remaining commbadge from his pocket, and tossed it to the scientist. "You're hired. You can start with the torpedoes on this shuttle."

Ijhel wasn't used to being ordered around. "Commander, _every_ hollow torpedo in the Delta Quadrant needs my upgrades. If you run this shuttle into a Borg armada all of my work is lost."

"If I don't find a drone, Doctor, there may not be an Alliance around to use your work for anything. I didn't pick this ship--I'd have taken a destroyer if I could--but this is all we have and I need every advantage I can get."

"What makes you think any ship could capture a drone all by itself?" Tirava asked. "You said it yourself--the last drone you brought back came from a cube that took out an entire fleet."

Kreighen began to answer, only to find himself chuckling about something he remembered from the night before. "'You should have seen the other guy.'"

"What?"

"The cube that destroyed the 7th Fleet might have won that battle," he explained, "but it didn't come easily. It took several collisions from Alliance ships, and I'm sure it lost warp power. It's still out there, Tirava, and it's the weakest ship in the Collective. If we play this smart, one shuttle will be all we need to complete the mission." 

He stood up and addressed them all. "Now...Tirava, you've got ops and tactical. Ijhel, I want those torpedoes reprogrammed and armed. Jimenez, check out our cloak and finish whatever didn't get fixed when this jalopy was in the repair bay."

Jimenez balked at the orders. "We haven't even agreed to this plan..."

Kreighen stepped forward to get in his face. "Mister, I am Lieutenant Commander Jacob Kreighen. Lieutenant _Suggester_ Jacob Kreighen didn't sign up for this war. Now, I know what you're thinking, and you can file protests when we get back. But until then, you take orders from me. You won't be reminded again."

The engineer took a deep breath, but didn't challenge the commander. "Aye sir," was all he said before he went to the aft section.

"Does that go for me too, Jake?" Tirava wondered.

"You can't have it both ways," Kreighen argued. "You wanted to be treated like a Starfleet lieutenant again? This is what comes with it. Don't fight me on this." She blinked at him for a moment, but then finally returned to her station without question.

Ijhel would have none of this. "I'm afraid you can't pull rank on me, Commander. I don't take orders form you or anyone except the Cardassian Union, which happens to be very, very far away from here. I must insist that you let me disembark from this mission of yours. Immediately."

Kreighen let her have her say, then fired back. "I'd be happy to do that, Doctor, but somebody already ejected our last escape pod." He returned to his seat at the helm, expecting no further dispute.


	16. Chapter 16

There was a big difference between Borg-controlled space and Borg-occupied space. If a Federation vessel ventured into, for example, Talarian space, it wouldn't take long for the Talarians to notice and send someone to investigate, if not open fire. Borg space, on the other hand, was less defined by the areas they routinely patrolled than by the regions too dangerous for anyone else to claim. Thus, despite the fact that the Borg inhabited hundreds of star systems and vast stations throughout the Delta Quadrant, a ship could sit in open space right in the middle of their territory and never be noticed...so long as that ship avoided attracting attention. With the _Hrunting_ under cloak, Commander Kreighen planned to do exactly that, until he found the Borg cube he was looking for.

He had stayed at the helm until Ijhel and Jimenez were convinced to get some sleep in the aft section, at which point he had felt safe enough to lock in his course for a trip to the head. It wasn't until Tirava finally jury-rigged a cot and nodded off in the rear of the cockpit that Kreighen allowed himself to move away from the console more freely, and even then he found little cause to do so.

The shuttle was virtually silent as it sped through the void; there was nothing but the hum of the warp engines and the view of the stars streaking by to keep him company. He found this tranquility soothing, and was in no hurry to end it. Let his crew sleep, he thought--let them dream and be someplace where they would have no reason to hate him for what he'd done...

"Don't you think you need some sleep?"

Her voice startled him. He hadn't expected Tirava to be awake after only four hours. "Someone has to fly the ship," Kreighen replied curtly.

"You've been flying her for...computer, how long since we left spacedock?"

"Eleven hours, twenty-six minutes," the disembodied voice answered.

"I'm not tired."

She crouched next to his chair. "Look, Jake, by now you've taken us so far into Borg space--on a course only you know--that it'd be more dangerous to turn back than to follow your lead. Nobody on this ship is crazy enough to attempt a mutiny.

Kreighen sighed deeply and turned around to face her. "I didn't want to drag anyone else into this, Tirava. I'm sorry."

"You should be. But if you'd bothered to tell me what you were planning, I might well have volunteered. I know what it's like to lose your comrades, Jake. And I know I'd give anything to take revenge on the cube that destroyed my ship."

"You don't understand..."

Her eyes and her antennae flared. "Don't presume to place your vendetta above an Andorian's, pinkskin."

"No, that's not..." He shook his head and tried to find the words to explain. "I never meant to hurt you, Tirava. You're the only one who really knows what it's like."

"Then let me share the burden." She gestured to the conn. "You were right--if I'm going to rejoin the fight I have to take orders. But if you're going to give orders, you can't keep the whole mission to yourself. You can't have it both ways either, Commander."

Kreighen nodded slowly. "You're right," he admitted solemnly.

She smiled a bit. "That's why you're going to love having me as a first officer."

He smirked and got up from his station. "We're headed for the site where the 7th Fleet was lost. I'm betting we'll find something there that'll tell us where that cube limped off to after the battle. Make sure we stay cloaked and wake me up when we're in scanning range."

"Aye aye, sir."

Kreighen tried out Tirava's cot and found it surprisingly comfortable after piloting a shuttle for twelve hours straight. "And first officer or not, you still have to call me Jake."

"Commanding officer or not, you still have to sleep with me when we get back."

Kreighen was out cold before he could respond to that particular demand.


	17. Chapter 17

Not much was left of the 7th Fleet. The site of its last stand was littered with chunks of wreckage, most of them no larger than the ruptured escape pods drifting through the flotsam.

The Borg cube that had caused this destruction was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't mean the trail was cold. The _Hrunting_ 's scanners couldn't pick up its ion trail, which suggested the cube had lost warp drive as Commander Kreighen had suspected. Assuming it had been travelling at sublight speeds for the past five days, it would still be well within the shuttle's sensor range. And yet, it was nowhere to be found. Evidently, the cube had managed to repair its propulsion systems--and thus began leaving a trail to follow--at some point during its journey. The _Hrunting_ needed to know which way it had gone.

The shuttle parked alongside half of an abandoned Klingon cruiser. Bereft of its engines and wings, it looked less like a bird-of-prey than the severed head of a chicken. Its interior was exposed to space and life support was gone, but the computer core was in one piece and that meant there was a chance that there were sensor logs of the Borg cube's course as it left the battle. Kreighen and Jimenez donned the shuttle's EV suits and beamed over to take a look. Tirava stayed at the conn to keep an eye out for Borg activity. 

That left Utana Ijhel in the aft section, still laboring over her program. It was easier for her to work without the distractions of her shipmates wandering around the limited space of the shuttle, but her progress had not significantly improved. Patching her own algorithms on top of Starfleet's own modifications was becoming frustrating, and her pride stung at the fact that she could not overcome the problem. Finally she decided to solve everything by discarding the work of her predecessors, and starting anew with her own superior coding.

Ijhel loaded her isolinear data rod into her console and loaded the program. "Computer, run file Ijhel-7-Alpha, kernel mode only."

The three-dimensional image of a humanoid materialized from the holo-emitter she had brought with her from the station. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency," it announced.

"Now we're getting somewhere," she muttered to no one in particular, as she typed into her PADD.

"I beg your pardon?" The hologram began to examine its surroundings. "This isn't sickbay..."

She sighed. "You're confused because your program is based on Starfleet's Emergency Medical Hologram Mark I. My name is Dr. Ijhel. I'm here to rewrite you."

The EMH became visibly nervous. " _Rewrite_ me? Madam, I am doctor, not a novel."

"You're a barber if I tell you to be," the Cardassian quipped. "What's your name?"

"My...my name?" The hologram began to ponder the question. "I...I don't have a name. Should I have one? There are so many possible choices, it's difficult to--"

Ijhel rolled her eyes. "Shtel...it goes all the way to the kernel."

"Colonel? What colonel?"

"You. You're the kernel of a holographic program designed to act as a Starfleet military operative in a war against the Borg."

"This is absurd!" it protested. "I'm--"

"I know, I know--you're a doctor, not a soldier. It wasn't my idea. Your code is originally from the matrix of the EMH from the Federation starship _Voyager_. The ship was lost for seven years without a medical crew, so its EMH was operational long enough for its artificial intelligence to...evolve. I saw it speak at a symposium six years ago--a very impressive piece of technology."

"So you weaponized it? Perhaps next you'll make a medic out of a holographic pastry chef."

"It weaponized _itself_ ," she explained as she worked. "The EMH requested permission to be equipped with an extension so it could participate in tactical decisions. That inspired Starfleet to launch the Hollow Men project, to create an army of holograms. _Voyager_ 's EMH was a natural prototype."

"Then why am I being rewritten? It sounds as if my program has a rather...distinctive pedigree of improving upon itself. I don't see what you could possibly contribute..."

Ijhel ignored it. "I'm entering Dilemma 32 now..."

The hologram blinked and acted as if it were in a new situation. "Mother...father...I can only save one of you...but which one?--ZERO--No matter what I do I'll have killed someone--ONE--but if I do nothing--TWO--if you think about it, all possible decisions have been predetermined since the creation of the universe--THREE--" It blinked again and was once more aware of Ijhel and the _Hrunting_. "What did you do to me?"

"I'm identifying the source of a stack overflow in your in your decision-making subroutines," she observed, more as a boast than an explanation. "You're based on an _emergency_ medical hologram. As impressive as it is that your code build upon itself, the resulting metaprogram is brittle, built up on a foundation that wasn't designed to take the strain. Starfleet's computer scientists couldn't figure out how to untangle the mess without sacrificing your most useful features. That's been undermining the Hollow Men since the project started. I'm here to fix their mess." She completed her modifications and recompiled. "There. Give yourself a name."

This time the hologram didn't have to think very long. "I suppose--ZERO--if I'm a soldier--ZERO--I should have a warrior's name--ZERO-- _could you please turn that off?_ "

Ijhel became slightly defensive. "I know what's causing that, one moment. All right, proceed."

"As I was saying..." He looked down at himself as if expecting to see the errant code causing his bizarre counting. "Ajax. Call me Ajax." He smiled with satisfaction at his decision, then thought better of it. "How did I do that? Five minutes ago I couldn't decide on a name if my life depending on it!"

"You're not listening to me," she scolded. "You're a sophisticated artificial intelligence bootstrapped by some Klingon engineer in the middle of nowhere from a fifteen-year-old, glorified medical tricorder. In order to subclass you into a proper solider I have to refactor the underlying code. Now shut up and let me work..."

"I'm sorry, but you're being frighteningly cavalier about the trifling matter of redefining everything that I am!" Ajax argued. He was on the verge of hysterics. "I am _not_ some diagnostic system that you can reshape beyond recognition! I'm an individual, and--"

Ijhel lost her temper and leapt to her feet. "You're a sequence of statements accessing collections of allocated memory to accomplish specific tasks! And I'm the one who specifies those tasks! When I tell you to jump, you jump, and if you don't, it's because I've forgotten you need to be told what 'jump' means. The Federation may see fit to treat your program as some sort of sentient being with a right to self-determination, but their best minds couldn't figure out how to turn you into a killing machine so they turned to _me_!" She composed herself and returned to her console. "So I decide what you are."

"Funny," Ajax mused as he examined the unmistakable Starfleet uniform he was wearing, "it looks to me as if some decisions are out of your hands."


	18. Chapter 18

There was no life support in the remains of the Klingon bird-of-prey, and what little power remained was slowly dimming away. But there was still gravity. By the 24th century artificial gravity had become so well-developed that it was virtually impossible to disable it short of shutting it off manually. And so the bodies of Klingon warriors still lay where they fell in battle when Kreighen and Jimenez beamed onto the bridge.

Taking no chances, they beamed aboard wearing Starfleet environmental suits and armed with polaron rifles. Kreighen immediately swept his weapon around the bridge, on the lookout for any threats. Satisfied that they were safe, he nodded to Jimenez to begin his work.

Jimenez found a science station and knelt down to unpack his equipment. "Do you want any other data while I'm at it, Commander?"

"There's no time," Kreighen answered. "That cube has probably been repairing its engines since it left here. The longer we wait around, the faster they'll be able to get away. Just get me their last known vector."

"Understood," the young engineer acknowledged. As he worked he noticed Kreighen was still clutching his rifle, peering around corners. "You don't really think there are any Borg around here, do you? Alive, I mean."

"Nothing here makes me sure there can't be."

"If you're so certain of that, can't we just get the dead drone you want from this wreckage?"

"That'd be like searching for a needle in a haystack," Kreighen suggested. "And too dangerous."

The ensign persisted. "More dangerous than hunting down a whole cube? We could at least _try_ to find one out here before we go even deeper into their space..."

"You have your orders, Ensign. Carry them out."

Jimenez shook his head and returned to scanning the Klingon sensor logs. After enough time had passed, he spoke up again. "Can I ask you something, sir?"

"Knock yourself out."

"How long did you serve as a flight controller?"

It seemed a non-sequitur to Kreighen. "I've always been one," he answered, "up until the _Bonham_ was destroyed. I haven't had a new assignment since I was promo--" He thought for a second. "What made you think I was _ever_ a flight controller?"

Jimenez held back a knowing smile. "Just a hunch."

"Ensign..."

He sighed and knew he'd been cornered. "Permission to speak freely, sir."

"If it'll get my scans finished quicker, sure."

"Back at the Academy they had a term for pilots...'Peter Pans,' they called 'em."

"I don't remember hearing that one," Kreighen noted.

"You wouldn't have. This was something the engineering cadets said among themselves. We'd all get assigned to training missions, and as sure as a mission would need an engineer it would need a helmsman. Afterwards we'd have bull sessions trading stories about the Peter Pans. Seemed like every pilot that ever came out of the Academy thought he was god's gift to space exploration--full of himself, alpha-male of the junior officers, proud nuisance of his superiors. The med students signed up to save lives, and the engineers signed up to gain experience, but the pilots just wanted to be adventure heroes."

"Is that right?" Kreighen said, offering Jimenez some more rope.

"None of them planned for the future--they all acted like they'd be twenty-year-old flight jockeys forever. Give a Peter Pan responsibility, he'll find a way to get reprimanded. Make him an XO and he'll just assign himself to as many shuttle missions as he can get. If you can get him in the captain's chair, he'll try to run the whole ship by himself, and avoid making admiral until he's sixty."

"So I'm one of these Peter Pans, then?"

"Yes...well, based on what I've seen so far." The engineer stood up. "You try to hide it behind your commander's pip, and this angst you've got over your lost ship. But...with all due respect...I think this mission has more to do with you refusing to grow up. You can't be a junior officer anymore, so you're playing Captain Kirk to distract yourself from your mid-life crisis."

"Is there a point to all this?"

"Just this--I'm not Sancho Panza." He paused, wondering if he'd mixed his metaphors, but went on. "I'll follow your orders and help you complete the mission, but you're dreaming if you think I'm intimidated by your awe-inspiring presence. If you're going to keep me in the dark on things, that's your prerogative, but just so you know I'm not the timid ensign, terrified he'll be thrown in the brig, that you want me to be when you boss me around."

Kreighen wanted to make his own little speech, or perhaps just throw a right hook to his jaw. But he knew what really angered him was that Jimenez was on to something. Besides, the _Hrunting_ didn't have a brig to throw him in. All it had was a crawlspace for service access to the engines. He didn't need a sidekick, he needed an engineer. "All right, Jimenez, you've said your piece. But we're still going after that cube. If we stay here we might find a drone...or a drone might find us first. With the cube we can make sure we're the ones with the element of surprise."

"Makes sense when you actually explain it," Jimenez admitted. He looked down at his tricorder. "Got it. The cube was detected leaving at one-quarter impulse, heading...three-two mark one four."

"It's making a beeline back to the Collective," Kreighen determined. "We have to catch it before it finds a place to get repaired."


	19. Chapter 19

Working directly in the hologram's kernel mode had proven to be a masterstroke for Ijhel. In the course of four hours she had made more progress on the program than she had accomplished in months of dealing with Starfleet's inelegant extensions and anti-patterns. As she unraveled the bloat surrounding the original Emergency Medical Hologram, she discovered that subroutines and event handlers she had spent long nights struggling with now fit seamlessly onto the existing code. Still, certain aspects of the kernel weren't to her liking.

"How much longer is this going to take?" Ajax grumbled. "I feel as if I've been cooped up in this room for days."

"We're aboard a shuttlecraft," Ijhel answered wearily. "It's not as if there's anywhere for you to go. Now hold still, I have to calibrate your self-destruct--"

" _Self-destruct!?_ "

She'd had enough. "Oh, what is it now?"

"Ha! You say that as if I _shouldn't_ worry that you're rigging me to explode. My mistake--I should put my mind at ease that a madwoman is sending my entire existence on a course for oblivion!"

"Look," she thundered, "once I'm finished, your program is to be copied and downloaded into millions of torpedoes, equipped with mobile emitters. Those emitters incorporate technology beyond even the Borg's understanding--they can't be allowed to assimilate it. So each instance of your program has to be able to destroy its mobile emitter--"

"And himself along with it! Your callous disregard for holographic life disgusts me!"

"This is _war_. And you're a soldier. You won't need me to explain this once I declare your valor properties..." Ijhel ran through a list of objectives on her PADD, picked one out, and began inserting the necessary modules.

Ajax suddenly grew six inches taller, and he definitely noticed. "Strange, I don't feel more valorous."

"I'll get to that in a minute. Computer, access facial component database. Cycle through all available options."

Ajax fumed as his features and pigmentation began to shift, and various coiffures appeared in succession over his once bald head. "Now you're playing dress-up? I thought we were at war."

"I prefer for my warriors to be a bit more...impressive," she explained. 

The door hissed open and Ijhel was nearly startled out of her seat. Commander Kreighen had finally come for a status report. "Someone else in your merry little band, I presume?" Ajax asked Ijhel, facetiously.

"Charming as ever," Kreighen noted of the hologram. "Weren't you supposed to be improving this program, Doctor?"

The sudden distraction had thrown her mind off her work. "Uhh...yes, yes, I'm nearly finished here, Commander. I need to plug in one or two more extensions...there."

Ajax suddenly stood taller and strode purposefully to Kreighen, offering a salute. "Military Assault Holographic program, Mark III revision alpha, reporting for duty."

"That's an improvement," Kreighen admitted as he returned the salute. "Will this be the sergeant, then?"

"This is my first prototype with the new modifications," Ijhel explained. "He'll be the commander for all instantiations of his program, so I'd think 'colonel' would be more appropriate..."

Kreighen disagreed. "First things first, Doctor. We've spotted our Borg cube on long-range sensors--we're due to intercept in three hours. He's going to have to run a squad before he gets an entire regiment."

"You can't send him onto that cube," she protested. "I'm going to need the prototype for--!"

"Sergeant Ajax, then," the hologram interrupted. "What are your orders, Commander?"

Kreighen was impressed. The original EMH was notoriously mercurial, self-absorbed, and unhelpful. For this copy of it to suddenly be more cooperative than even Ijhel was amazing. "For now, make yourself available to your programmer, Sergeant. Then report to Ensign Jimenez so we can arm the hollow torpedoes. I assume you know how to fight the Borg?"

"Yes, sir."

"Glad to hear it." He looked to the Cardassian. "Excellent work, Ijhel. By the way...why did you change his appearance?"

Ijhel glanced to her creation, now a broad-shouldered figure with piercing dark eyes. "Oh...that..." she stammered. "Well...I thought it would be best to avoid confusion with the original model."

"Good thinking." Kreighen sized up his new crew member and smirked. "He's a damn sight more handsome than the old one, I'll give you that. You're lucky to be her project, Ajax."

"Believe me, sir," Ajax answered, only barely disguising his contempt, "we're both _thrilled_ to be working together."


	20. Chapter 20

The Borg cube that destroyed the 7th Fleet was by this time no longer strictly cubical. Its hull was littered with craters from enemy fire--hundreds less than a meter wide, some half a kilometer across. Two of its eight corners had been completely chipped away. On one facet of the ship, the remnants of a Klingon bird-of-prey clung defiantly, embedded to the hilt where its collision course had taken it. 

The journey back to safe haven had been no easier on the vessel. In their eternal hubris, the Borg pushed what was left of the ship to its limits, overtaxing damaged systems, attempting repairs, and then overtaxing them again. Plasma fires had broken out on several decks, damaging still more systems. But the Borg would not yield, and forced their ship onward at the relatively pathetic speed of eight million kilometers per hour.

It had been in this state when the _Hrunting_ came within visual range. Commander Kreighen recognized it immediately. "That's our target," he announced to his crew.

"You're sure they can't see us?" Ijhel worried.

"Relax, Doctor," he assured her. "The cloaking device is working fine. They don't know we're here."

"But they will as soon as we attack," Jimenez noted. "Whatever we do, we have to be in and out before they can hit us back." He examined the readouts at the ops console. "I'm picking up the life signs of the drones--we could use the transporter to snatch one away."

"Too risky," Tirava countered. "Their electromagnetic field is inactive right now, but they could throw it up at a second's notice. We'd lose our prisoner in mid-transport, and tip them off before we could take another shot."

Kreighen stared at the cube has he locked in his pursuit course. "Ensign, can you identify the life signs?"

"I'm reading about five thousand drones--"

"Just drones?"

Jimenez was caught off-guard by the suggestion. "Sensors can't determine who's a Borg and who isn't, Commander. I can identify several different species, but not whether they're assimilated."

"Almost all Borg drones are native to the Delta Quadrant," Ijhel offered. "If there are more than a dozen Alpha Quadrant species on that ship, chances are they were recently captured." She looked to Kreighen. "So this isn't some jingoistic suicide run after all. It's an overly optimistic rescue mission."

Kreighen didn't answer. "Tirava, scan the cube for hull breaches. We get one free shot, and I want to get the holograms as deep inside as we can."

There was no acknowledgement from the tactical station. He turned towards her, puzzled. "Tirava?"

***

She had spent weeks having cybernetic implants torn from her body, and months of regenerative therapy to repair the damaged flesh, until there was almost no outward sign that she had ever been Borg. And yet there were some implants that could never be completely extracted. The neural transceiver in her spine was one of them.

Voices began to whisper in her head as soon as the _Hrunting_ was within ten thousand kilometers of the cube. Normally the effect would be more overwhelming, with literally trillions of drones broadcasting their thoughts throughout the Collective. But this cube had taken heavy damage, and its central vinculum was misaligned, hampering its uplink with the greater hive mind. The strongest voices were of the drones in the cube itself, struggling to maintain order and keep the ship flying until it could obtain assistance. The rest of the Borg were like a dull hum in the background, buzzing hypnotically like white noise, until the static seemed to coalesce into a meaningful pattern: the sound of a single, female voice, representing the will of the Borg.

"Hello, Tirava. We've missed you."

"No," she answered, within her own mind. "I won't let you in!"

"It is a pity," the Borg "queen" mused. "When we found you, you were a petty little warrior. We gave you perfection. And now you have left us, unable to even be a warrior again. By now you must see the error of your ways. We can forgive you."

"I'm not going back to you!" the Andorian insisted. "I'm not some timid child you can frighten into submission! When you assimilated me you were subduing a single Federation starship. Now you have an entire armada to deal with."

"Yes," the queen admitted, "your amusing invasion. You more than anyone in your Alliance knows the truth, Tirava. Your war cannot be won. Your leaders and their armies will exhaust their resources, and fall defenseless before us. They will suffer greatly. Not as you did..."

"Shut up!"

"Only you can save them from their futility. You can show them the proper path. There is room for them all among the Collective. You can trust us...we see through you what you cannot see for yourself. He doesn't love you, Tirava. You can only truly bond with him through us. Instruct him to disarm his weapons and surrender unconditionally."

"Damn you..." Tirava gathered her will, and recalled the techniques taught to her by the repatriation counselors. Focusing her mind, she pushed back against the queen, against the entire Collective. Their voices became softer, more incoherent. 

Resistance was not futile, she assured herself. Not this time.

Her head seemed to burn from her concentration, but it only focused her. She would endure the pain, and fight for control of herself. The Borg continued to fade from her senses, becoming less a voice than a fading memory...until they were at last no more, like a forgotten dream.

***

It was as though she had nodded off at her station for a moment, but it had been long enough that Kreighen, Jimenez, and Ijhel were all staring at her. That was how she knew it was already too late. "Jake..." she breathed, "they know where we are."

The hailing frequency burst into the ship's communication array, awaiting no permission to be heard and demanding complete attention. "WE ARE THE BORG. FROM THIS TIME FORWARD YOU WILL SERVICE US. IF YOU DEFEND YOURSELVES, YOU WILL BE PUNISHED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."


	21. Chapter 21

Kreighen punched in evasive maneuvers and the _Hrunting_ took off like a shot. He knew his ship couldn't defend against the Borg tractor beam, and if this cube still had one it would lock onto him at the first opportunity. As soon as he could transfer weapons control to his station, he decloaked and opened fire. Dissipator pulses rained against the cube, sending bolts of energy crawling across its hull, leeching away energy reserves. Sections of the cube, which was always aglow with a telltale Borg green, began to flicker and go dark.

As he came about for another pass, he turned back to his crew. Tirava was furious. "Uzaveh's eyes! Give me back the weapons!"

"You're compromised, Tirava--if you can hear the Borg they can hear you."

"I can shut them out!"

He ignored her. "Ijhel, take her to the back! See if you can tap into her neural transceiver..."

Ijhel balked at the thought of making the warrior go anywhere. "I'll need Jimenez..."

"Then work quickly!" Kreighen reconfigured the helm, giving himself access to all of the shuttle's primary functions. It was possible to fly a Delta Flyer single-handed, even into battle, but he was willing to bet no one had ever done it against the Borg before.

The cube locked on with its tractor beam as he came in on the second pass, but the dissipator blasts had weakened the strength of the beam; the _Hrunting_ shook loose with little difficulty. He found a sizable crater on the cube and deposited a volley of quantum torpedoes there, deepening the wound. A second tractor latched on as the ship passed by, this time holding her long enough to pull it off course. Kreighen struggled with the helm to right the shuttle, narrowly avoiding the Borg's cutting beam. 

As he regained attitude control he peppered the cube with nano-torpedoes until he had exhausted his supply. The technopathogen payloads would begin affecting the Borg on impact, but this particular weapon had been designed with the mindset of an entire fleet showering them onto the Borg for maximum effect. The _Hrunting_ had a little of every trick in the book, but it was still only one tiny ship. Chances were that it would exhaust its ordnance without ever defeating the cube; that was exactly what had happened to the 7th Fleet. Their only chance had been a sneak attack, using the cloaking device to fight on their own terms. That was impossible now.

But Commander Kreighen couldn't dwell on that; indeed he refused to. He continued to strafe the same face of the cube. After another round of dissipator fire, Kreighen held his position, maneuvering only to keep the facet he was targeting pointed towards the _Hrunting_. Decentralized as the Borg cube was, it stood to reason he was doing no damage at all to the other side of the vessel, but if he could keep those sides facing away from him they could hardly damage him. (It was something of a design flaw, arising from building one's ship in the shape of a cube ten times bigger than the enemy's biggest ships.) He had the Borg were he wanted them, and he couldn't contain his satisfaction. He reopened the channel to the cube.

"WE ARE THE BORG. EXISTENCE AS YOU KNOW IT IS OVER. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED," they droned.

"I am Kreighen," he interrupted. "Existence as _you_ know it is over. You will be knocked on your ass."

"BRAVADO IS IRRELEV--" Kreighen shut off the channel and fired his hollow torpedoes directly into the gash he'd been gouging into the Borg's hull.

***

The hollow torpedoes were designed to self-navigate to a designated target and, rather than explode on impact, penetrate as deeply as possible into the that target. Once the warheads had come to a stop, embedded thirty meters into the cube, the Borg drones manning that section of the ship did what they always did: They ignored anything that did not pose an obvious threat. This gave the torpedoes ample opportunity to deposit their payloads--small, spherical devices containing mobile holographic emitters. Each torpedo's emitter activated, executing an instance of Sergeant Ajax around it.

The squad leader looked to see all of his duplicates had instantiated. "Ajax to _Hrunting_ ," he said into his communicator. "We're in. What are your orders?"

"I need the the ship neutralized but operational," Kreighen answered. "Capture the central plexus and make a mess on your way."

"Acknowledged." Ajax motioned to his men to secure the section. They fanned out, locating the nearest drones, who remained oblivious. The Borg had no interest in holographic technology, and it would be their undoing.

Each holographic soldier walked up behind a drone and attacked--some drones had their necks broken, others had their self-destruct mechanisms triggered. Some of the hollow men simply used their hands like vices upon the drones' skulls. Since the earliest days of holographic technology in the Alpha Quadrant, any hologram could employ lethal or even superhuman force when the safety protocols were disengaged. In this war, the safeties were undeniably off.

The holograms had quickly killed enough drones to secure energy weapons for each of them, and they began firing upon any drone in visual range, as well as distribution nodes and power relays. Now they had the Borg's attention, but there was little the drones could do. The Borg's standard procedure to confront a boarding party was to continually dispatch drones to intercept and assimilate the intruders. But the drones could hardly defend themselves against their own forced plasma beams, and they had no means to assimilate a hologram.

Indeed, the only advantage the drones now had was their superior numbers; within minutes they had jammed the corridors to the point that a firefight would be impractical. Fortunately for the hollow men, their programs had equipped them with alternative weaponry.

Ajax took point, and reconfigured his holomatrix--instead of the image of a man, his emitter now projected the image of that man brandishing a Klingon mek'leth blade. "Cut them down," he casually ordered. 

And so they did.


	22. Chapter 22

In the entire recorded history of Borg encounters with Alpha Quadrant species, there had been no indication that Borg drones had ever defended themselves against projectiles or melee weapons. Their programming was apparently only concerned with adapting to repel energy weapons. Military theorists speculated that this was less to protect the individual drones than to develop defenses against technology that might, on a larger scale, threaten Borg vessels. Thus, if one were to take a knife and slit a drone's throat, the next drone to come along would not employ force fields to shield itself from the same attack; one could slit that drone's throat in precisely the same way, and so and so on through countless drones, assuming one was not assimilated in the process. But Starfleet's hollow men were merely projections that could not be assimilated, and their emitters were tiny, well-defended targets.

As such, Sergeant Ajax and his squad tore through the Borg with their cutlasses, meeting little resistance beyond the challenge of climbing over their victims. Each drone assumed it would succeed in restraining the holograms where the last had failed, and that inevitably this task would be complete; there was no Plan B. This left them totally at the mercy of the hollow men, who slowly but surely inched toward the heart of the cube, and the central plexus.

Six hours earlier Ajax had been a medical program, hardcoded to first do no harm. Now he was a soldier, completely reprogrammed to defend his government against its enemies, and he did so without question or hesitation. His program contained all tactical data about the Borg and the physiology of all known assimilated species; for any given drone he knew exactly where and when to slice. Occasionally a drone would catch him off-guard and seize his sword hand. His program would simply rematerialize the blade in the other hand and finish the job. If a drone managed to get close enough to fire its assimilation tubules, it might penetrate Ajax's exterior surface and disrupt his holographic field, but not before he could strike back with greater efficiency.

While seven of the ten holograms were forming a moving perimeter down the corridor, three were protected in the center, scavenging the dead Borg for whatever parts could be quickly engineered into new weapons. These hollow men had no names; Ajax's regression testing aside, none of them would need a name to perform their tasks. When they completed their work they signaled Ajax and the others at the lead to fall back, then lobbed a series of improvised explosives into the throng of drones. The resulting explosion killed dozens and scattered the rest, allowing the hollow men an easy path forward, even as the drones coming from the rear became increasingly preoccupied with collecting components from the dead.

But for all of the squad's progress, Ajax knew that there were far too many drones on the cube for even a hologram to slaughter one-by-one. Victory lay in capturing the central plexus, and from there creating a ship-wide weakness that the _Hrunting_ could exploit. 

Ajax shifted his holographic eyes from the visible spectrum to full sensor scans. The plexus was still a kilometer away...

***

The _Hrunting_ had bought time by disabling the cube's weapons on a single facet and staying in the shadow of that facet, but it was a delaying tactic at best. For all the shuttle's superior maneuverability, Commander Kreighen now had to perform dazzling feats of navigation to keep the ship oriented in front of the "dark side" of the cube, whereas the cube could counter by merely rotating itself. The two vessels danced in this way for nearly twenty minutes, each firing at the slightest opportunity. 

Kreighen knew he could do this all day, but his weapons were running low. He could take pride in having lasted this long, but he was realistic enough to know they now had him playing their game: Letting him exhaust his capacity for resistance. He had to change the rules.

The next time the cube moved, he veered hard to starboard. Instead of trying to stay along the dark side, he gunned the impulse drive. He couldn't risk going to warp yet--it was possible the Borg might let him go to focus on repairs and the hollow men. This left him wide open as the cube turned to fire, but he was getting the hang of dodging their attacks. Finally the cube lurched into pursuit, and Kreighen knew he had them where he wanted them. The _Hrunting_ went to warp 1, enticing the Borg to do the same, and steadily increased speed. 

The tables had been turned. The Borg had the advantage in a standoff, but the _Hrunting_ 's warp engines were in far better condition for a chase. If he could stay just ahead of the Borg, and if they continued to increase their speed to intercept him, and if they overtaxed their damaged engines enough to create a catastrophic failure, the cube could be weakened enough for him to turn back and make the kill. But there were a lot of ifs in that plan, and one gigantic problem. If Kreighen accelerated too quickly, there was a chance they would drop out of warp and effect repairs before resuming the pursuit, which would avail him nothing. So if they opened fired on his tail, he couldn't just create some distance. That left him with evasive maneuvers, but at warp speed the _Hrunting_ was virtually locked into straight path. 

The Borg had an open shot, and they took it. A tractor beam locked on to the shuttle; this time it held fast, draining the shields. Consoles behind Kreighen's station began to spark and blow from the strain. Red lights flashed in front of him, indicating stress to the hull and the engines. The Borg's tractor didn't seem to be slowing the _Hrunting_ down, but at this rate it would be the shuttle that exploded instead of the cube. 

There was nothing else to do but keep going. Kreighen continued to accelerate, pushing his ship, hoping that this would at least keep the Borg busy and give the hollow men a chance to stop them...


	23. Chapter 23

Kreighen steeled himself as the _Hrunting_ shuddered against the Borg tractor beam. No matter what happened, he had to keep the shuttle on course, constantly accelerating. Sensors showed violent power fluctuations in the cube. Good, he thought; he could only hope it was the result of the Borg focusing more on the pursuit, and the intruders in their vessel, than on battening down the hatches. It was a slim hope, the only one he had left. And it was short-lived.

The Borg, perhaps finally recognizing the need to end this battle, went against their standard tactics and fired a torpedo, rather than wait for the tractor to drain the shields. It scored a direct hit on the shuttle's weakened defenses, and the lights aboard the _Hrunting_ flickered. The shuttle began to fall out of warp; it was all Kreighen could do to steer his ship away from being run over by the enemy. He quickly took stock of the damage, and relatively he had come away lucky. But warp power was gone, and that had been the last card he had to play.

He watched the Borg drop out of warp and come about, once again content to take their time. He could stalemate them again, by staying on the face of the cube he had crippled before. But there was, after all, a reason he had abandoned that plan. All he could do now was either delay the inevitable, or make his stand.

***

The hollow men had made magnificent progress through the Borg cube, carving their way through precisely two hundred seventy-two drones to arrive at the central plexus. But the central nervous system of the ship had defenses befitting its importance; reaching it and capturing it were entirely different things. Ajax and six other holograms held the line, while two others labored to hack into the force fields protecting the computer core. One hologram had already been overwhelmed by the drones and forced to self-destruct, and as the Borg kept coming it was certain more would fall. For all that the hollow men were unstoppable in advancements, they could only remain entrenched for so long against superior numbers.

"Ajax to Kreighen!" the holographic sergeant called through an open communication link. "We've reached the plexus, but we're pinned down. Can you offer any assistance?"

It was nearly ten seconds--during which time another hologram succumbed to the Borg and exploded--before the answer came. "Negative, Ajax," Kreighen responded. "You have your orders. Do as much as you can. _Hrunting_ out."

It was the first time Ajax had noticed the name of his ship. For some reason the literary reference was available in his holographic matrix; it did not instill him with confidence.

***

"Let me go! Let me meet destiny on my feet!"

Jimenez and Ijhel had managed to drag Tirava, kicking and screaming, to the aft section of the shuttle, but to keep her there meant cramming her into the biobed and activating the security fields around it. Though restrained, she was no less defiant. She had assented to Kreighen's mission to see battle; she was now being denied this.

Ijhel had indelicately torn open the back of the Andorian's tunic to gain access to the Borg implants on her upper spine. With Jimenez's help, she had successfully connected Tirava's neural transceiver to a tricorder and was desperately attempting to gain some level of interface with the Collective. There was no way for them to know how the battle went, save for the terrible shaking of the hull around them.

"Are you sure we can't sedate her?" Jimenez asked over Tirava's cries.

Ijhel never looked up from her frantic typing. "I need access to the hive mind!" she snapped. "If she's unconscious it might break the connection."

"Cardassian sow!" Tirava bellowed. "I am not some holographic weapon for you to point at the Borg! Release me and I'll prove it!"

Ijhel looked up and sneered. "Honestly, under the circumstances, I'd love to let you return to the cockpit and pick my way into Jimenez's central nervous system instead. But he's the engineer and you're the Borg, so I need you both right where you are!" She turned back to the tricorder, seething. "There's more to fighting than rage and brute force; if that was all we had the Borg wouldn't even bother with us. Ensign, are you getting anyplace with the comm system?"

"Almost..."

"Jimenez--!"

It was his turn for a tantrum. "For god's sake, Doc, if I get this wrong we'll be giving the Borg access to _our_ computer and we'll be dead!" He completed the final connections with his hyperspanner. "There!"

The voices in Tirava's head now echoed through the aft section, serving as a background chorus for one in particular. "--cannot save you, Tirava. Oh, look, your friends have decided to join our conversation. Please, do accustom yourself to our way of life."

"That got it!" Ijhel exclaimed, and typed even faster. I should be able to transmit command sequences directly into the cube's vinculum..."

The Borg queen was amused. "Such arrogance, Utana. We see now what Tirava told us about you."

"She's only known me for two days," Ijhel scoffed. "I can be far more arrogant. Ask your drones on that cube."

"We acknowledge your handiwork in the holograms. Your skills are impressive...but you are small, and you achieve only on small terms. Allow us to offer true superiority, within the perfection of our collective..."

The Cardassian chuckled. "You've spent too much time harassing humans, Borg. I already have a collective, and we're already superior to the rest of the galaxy. We'll teach you that soon enough..."

The _Hrunting_ creaked and groaned. "I'd feel better about having money on that," Jimenez interrupted, "if you'd stop talking to them and shut them up."

"Patience, Mister Jimenez," Ijhel smiled. "A true victory is to make your enemy see they were wrong to oppose you in the first place; to force them to acknowledge your greatness..." 

The queen went on. "Your misguided pride is irrelevant, a weakness that you will have no need for..."

The deck quaked again, and Jimenez could tell it was getting much worse. Just by the feel of the ship, the engineer could sense the battle slipping to the Borg. While he lacked Ijhel's finesse with algorithms, he knew how to work with what he had at hand. The young ensign rushed Ijhel, grabbing the tricorder out of her hands. In one fluid motion, he leaped to the weapons locker, opened it, and pulled out a jammer pistol. Without hesitation, he plugged the one device into the other, and fired the jammer pulse. At once the queen fell silent; the cacophony of Borg voices in her wake rose at once like a stabbing pain, then fell into nothingness.

Ijhel and Jimenez looked about, then to one another. The _Hrunting_ had fallen still and silent, under attack no more.


	24. Chapter 24

Doctor Ijhel and Ensign Jimenez raced out of the aft section to the cockpit. When they reached the front of the shuttle, they found Kreighen at the helm, relieved but wary.

"They've stopped," Kreighen told them. "One second they had us in the tractor beam, the next the whole ship stopped moving. What did you do?"

Ijhel's eyes shifted, not wanting to take the credit. Jimenez spoke up. "We...were able to get access to the hive mind through Tirava's cybernetics. We could hear their thoughts. We, uh, realized they could hear us, so we sent a jammer pulse through the connection."

"Son of a bitch," Kreighen said, awestruck. He had firsthand experience of the jammer's effect on a single Borg drone. "It must have been like a loudspeaker right in the ear."

"Except the 'ear' is mechanical." Ijhel offered. "Like a microphone hooked up to a speaker pointed at another microphone, and so on. The feedback of the original pulse may still be reverberating through the Collective. It probably depends on the strength of this cube's connection to the hive mind--"

Kreighen waved her off. "Save the full report for Starfleet, Ijhel. Damn good job, all of you. Where's Tirava?"

"Still locked down in the biobed," Jimenez recalled.

"See if you can calm her down and let her loose, then have her help you with repairs. I don't know how long this cube will stay down, but I want warp drive operational before then." As Jimenez acknowledged the orders and left, Kreighen opened a comm channel. " _Hrunting_ to Ajax, do you read?"

Long moments passed, and then: "Ajax here, Commander. The Borg are in disarray, behaving erratically. We think they've been severed from the Collective."

"Affirmative, Sergeant. What's your status?"

"We've made it into the central plexus. I've got a man working on throttling power to the ship--the rest of us are securing our position. Some of the drones are behaving violently so we're not taking chances. I'm planning to have my squad fan out to patrol the cube."

"Understood, Ajax. Make sure you spare a man; Ijhel and I are beaming over to examine the cube."

"I'll escort you myself, Commander."

"Acknowledged. Stand by." Kreighen closed the channel and smiled, wearily, to Ijhel. "Your holograms did all right, Doctor. I'm starting to be glad you stowed away."

"I appreciate the compliment, Commander," Ijhel admitted, "but what business do I have on that ship?"

"I need the others to fix the engines," he explained, "so that leaves you as the closest I can get to a science officer."

***

The center of the Borg cube was nearly as silent and dim as the outer hull. Ajax's hollow men had restricted power well below the Borg's ability to pilot the ship, fire weapons, or re-establish contact with the Collective. All the drones could do was return to their alcoves for regeneration, which the holograms were slowly coercing them into doing. The mass disconnection had affected each drone differently--a minority reacted violently, some fell into stupor. Most simply acted irrationally: walking endlessly into walls, attempting to assimilate one another, and so forth. By the time Ijhel and Kreighen beamed over none posed a serious threat.

Ajax welcomed them aboard. "Our top priority has been getting the drones secured in their alcoves," he reported. "We're working on adapting the ship's navigational systems so that we can fly it. If all goes well we'll only need a skeleton crew of one hologram for the return trip."

"Good work, Ajax." Kreighen took stock of the central plexus area. "What about prisoners? Have you located the assimilation chamber?"

Ajax nodded. "This way, sir."

Kreighen led the way as soon as Ajax indicated the direction, eager as he was to get there. Ijhel and Ajax followed a few steps behind.

"You truly have been magnificent," the Cardassian told her creation. "Commander Kreighen is more impressed than you may realize."

"I'm not terribly interested in listening to you gloat, Doctor," the hologram replied.

"Gloat?"

"To you I'm nothing more than a program. If you want to accept the credit for my work, I don't object. That doesn't mean I want to hear all about it."

She stared at him, perplexed. "Of all the stubborn, unappreciative...! I hardly need to claim your accomplishments as my own to earn praise, thank you."

"If it's praise you want from me, I have only one request," Ajax muttered. "You need to program me so that I will choose a name."

"You already have a name, Ajax."

"Only because you instructed me to pick one. You've given me the capacity for the decision, but not the initiative to make it."

"But it's academic now. _You have a name_."

He stopped and turned to her in the corridor. "My soldiers don't," he said bluntly. "It never occurred to any of us that they needed names. But I've lost two men today. They won't be the last. And while I'm fully programmed to die in the service of the Federation, I find I'm ill-prepared to watch them die. I will have to remember each hologram I lose in this war; I would appreciate it if you ensured that they had something _to_ remember."

Ijhel was suddenly in no mood to quarrel with her program. "O-of course," she agreed. "We'll get to work on it once we return to the shuttle."

There was a crash of equipment in the distance, and Ajax looked away from his programmer. He'd let Kreighen get out of sight, in spite of himself. His programming did not encourage allowing senior officers to wander dimly-lit Borg cubes alone, and he began to sprint ahead, pulling Ijhel along after him.

When the pair caught up, they found themselves in the wreckage of the Borg cube's assimilation chamber. The area was in a sorry state (the Borg had seen little opportunity to do any mass assimilating since the war had begun) with artificial limbs and other "spare parts" strewn across the deck. And there was more.

It seemed that Ijhel had surmised correctly prior to the attack, and Kreighen had now found what he had truly been after all along. Secured and restrained in various states of duress and exhaustion were nine survivors from the 7th Fleet. They'd been captured in the aftermath of the massacre six days ago; presumably the Borg had kept them here ever since, continually frustrated in their attempts to defeat the Alliance's anti-assimilation defenses. It was possible these people had survived longer as individuals aboard a Borg vessel than anyone else in history.

Kreighen was in the center of the chamber, struggling to dislodge someone from an alien examination table. As Ajax and Ijhel approached, they gained a better view as Kreighen freed the slim human female...and kissed her deeply as he held her in his arms.


	25. Chapter 25

Like all Delta Flyer-class shuttles, the _Hrunting_ had its warp core situated against the ventral hull, beneath the cabin. The only access provided for maintenance was a small Jefferies tube running alongside the core, and it was here that Nathan Jimenez had spent much of the past hour, trying to get the faster-than-light propulsion back into operation. He was used to the cramped, inadequately-lit conditions, but not to working on a shuttle's engines this far from a shuttlebay. Then again, it beat beaming over to the dormant Borg cube six hundred meters to starboard.

He completed a reconfiguration and tapped his commbadge. "All right, try to manipulate the fuel injectors."

Tirava answered him from the cockpit. "Negative. It's still not showing any power in those systems."

"Dammit," the ensign grumbled. "Uhhhh...try rerouting power from the cloaking device to the plasma conduits."

"Aren't we going to _need_ the cloaking device to get out Borg space?"

"We need warp speed just a little more, unless you want to fly under cloak for fifty years. Besides, I'm pretty sure every Borg in the quadrant knows where we are." Jimenez waited in the Jefferies tube for acknowledgment before he could proceed, but the Andorian did not answer. "Lieutenant? Lieutenant Tirava, respond."

He was half expecting the shuttle to be under attack again, until he felt a hand grab his arm. Shocked, he turned to find Tirava, having left her station and crawled all the way into the access tunnel to confront him.

"You presume too much, Ensign!" she growled. "If you have something to say to me, say it now!"

He knew this was trouble, but he refused to back down. "What the hell is your problem?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

"No," he insisted, "I don't. So whatever it is, either tell me or break my neck for it."

Her antennae tensed. "Do you mean to tell me you don't blame me for the Borg discovering our ship?"

Jimenez looked at her curiously. "I don't blame you for anything. The Borg have limited contact with former drones. If it's anybody's fault, it's Kreighen's for not thinking of that when he started this mission." He reconsidered what he had said to set the woman off. "All I meant was, after that jammer we sent through the hive mind, the Borg probably couldn't forget our location if they tried."

Tirava released Jimenez's arm and looked away, her antenna drooping. "I...I'm sorry, Ensign. I suppose I blame myself."

He scooted around in the crawl-way to face her properly. "Look, if you don't mind me asking, what's the big deal? We beat the Borg--we may have stunned the whole damned hive--and we couldn't have done it without you."

"No, you don't--" She sighed and summoned the will to explain. "You're human, Jimenez. You can't understand what it is to be a warrior. I mean no offense by that, but your people are dreamers, peacemakers, explorers--you can't appreciate what it is to be a member of a warrior race, because your people could never be so...single-minded.

"Every member of my family has defended the Federation in time of war, and the Andorian Empire before that. When I joined Starfleet I took every elective available in military science--the Cardassian Wars had been going on for years, I was sure I could be stationed on the front lines. But by the time I graduated, the fighting had cooled down--the first truce was made shortly thereafter. I was assigned to the _Tombaugh_ and became its tactical officer...but it wasn't enough.

"The _Tombaugh_ was on a deep space expedition when we encountered the Borg. We had no idea what we were up against, so Captain Blackwood kept our defenses lowered in a gesture of good will. Even when they began to attack we only fired warning shots. By the time we fully understood the threat, half the bridge crew was dead. I was left in command. And even then, we still assumed that the Borg were no different from most civilizations; that on some level, it was possible to reason with them. And so I...I..."

Jimenez put it together. "You surrendered."

"If I had thought of it as defeat, I would have sooner rammed their cube!" she asserted. "But I was certain that they would hold us as prisoners, and there might be some opportunity to escape. I didn't know what they would do..."

"You couldn't have known," the ensign assured her. "No one in the Alpha Quadrant could have."

"I know you're right," she admitted. "But that's only part of it. When I was assimilated, the Borg robbed me of what was to be a proud military career. I was taken back to the Delta Quadrant and assigned menial duties on System 7723--even the Collective didn't send me into battle. And thanks to their handiwork, it's too risky to reinstate me back into Starfleet. This was my only chance, Jimenez. My only chance to obtain even symbolic vengeance for my shipmates and live up to my bloodline. And now it's gone."

Jimenez's human nature made him want to console her, to offer some wisdom that would help her with her frustration. But there was nothing he could say. For a moment he considered noting that Commander Kreighen was sure to commend her service on this mission...until it occurred to him that Kreighen wouldn't have much political clout after his inevitable court martial. And so he sat there in the tube beside his shipmate, silently offering his sympathies.

He was spared the trouble of finding something to say by the sound of a klaxon coming from the cockpit. "That's a proximity alarm," he said as the blood drained from his face. 

Jimenez and Tirava hurried out of the Jefferies tube and back to the cockpit, already knowing what they would find. No one else could possibly be in this sector, and with the _Hrunting_ in its current, sorry shape, there would be no defense and no escape.

Tirava took the helm and began gathering sensor data, but Jimenez could see all that needed to be seen from the forward viewport. A Borg sphere had just dropped out of warp, closing fast on their position.


	26. Chapter 26

The Borg sphere seemed to linger in space, in no great hurry to attack the _Hrunting_. "Why aren't they attacking?" Jimenez asked. "They've got us dead to rights!"

"I didn't hear them in my head this time," Tirava noted. She raised shields and began maneuvering to put the captured cube between them and the sphere. "Maybe they're still reeling from that jammer pulse. I know _I_ still have a headache...can we try that again?"

Jimenez shook his head. "It took us half an hour to get deep enough into their application layer, and Ijhel did most of that work. Can we beam her and Kreighen back to the ship?"

"I don't want to lower the shields. Besides, in the shape we're in now, they might be better off on the cube."

"Then what are we supposed to do?"

Tirava took a deep breath, and settled into her chair. "We hit them with whatever we have left and try to buy Jake a little--" She stopped, noticing a blinking light on her console. "They're hailing us."

"I think we _know_ what they have to say," the ensign said, exasperated.

"No," she replied as she read the header packet of the transmission, "you don't."

She opened a channel, and a lone, Klingon-looking Borg appeared on the viewscreen. "Federation shuttle," he bellowed, "this is General Korok of Unimatrix Zero. You have nothing to fear from the Borg; you are now under _my_ protection."

***

A rare genetic mutation among several Borg drones had allowed them to use the hive mind network to create a sort of collective unconsciousness, where they could commune together as individuals. This dreamscape would come to be known as Unimatrix Zero, and was the foundation of the first organized resistance movement against the Borg Collective. By happenstance, the Federation starship _Voyager_ de-assimilated a drone that had been a member of Unimatrix Zero, creating an opportunity for the group to begin acting in the waking world. With _Voyager_ 's help, the rebels were soon able to maintain their individuality while conscious, allowing them to commandeer numerous vessels and begin moving against the Collective. The resistance cell in this region was commanded by General Korok.

His sphere, the _Exsecuturus_ , had been heavily modified by his crew of ex-drones. Although they were still physically assimilated, they had sought to give themselves the creature comforts of individualistic society. The _Hrunting_ crew--Kreighen, Tirava, Jimenez, and Ijhel--now sat in a "ready room" of sorts that had once served as an assimilation chamber, as Korok paced in front of them. In spite of his severe cybernetic alterations and ghastly gray complexion, his posture and swagger let no one forget he was Klingon.

"News of your invasion from the Alpha Quadrant was slow to reach us," he explained. "Our forces operate deep inside enemy territory, using our Borg technology to deceive and confuse the Collective's forces. The intelligence we gathered from the hive mind revealed little about your campaign at first..."

"Until recently, any Borg that encountered us didn't last long enough to send back much information," Kreighen noted.

"Eventually we learned that as well," Korok continued. "My heart swelled to know that a Klingon battleground could be so nearby. Since then we have made a priority of contacting the Alliance. Tell me, Commander"--he glanced at Ijhel--"is it true that Starfleet and the Empire now stand with Cardassians? And even Romulans?"

Kreighen decided to spare him the details. "More or less, General--a lot's happened in the Alpha Quadrant since you were assimilated."

The Klingon grinned, revealing his jagged fangs. "I will have no quarrel with new allies. In Unimatrix Zero, all species are united against the Borg. Klingons, Devore, Hirogen..." He addressed Ijhel. "I know a Cardassian or two who'd be delighted to meet you..."

Ijhel leapt for an opportunity to change the subject. "On a...related note, Commander...how is your lover faring?"

"Lover?" Jimenez turned to face her, surprised. He wasn't the only one.

"One of the prisoners we found aboard the cube," she explained. "She and Commander Kreighen..."

Kreighen sat motionless in his chair. If he thought he'd been cornered, he did his best not to show it. "That's enough, Doctor."

Tirava glanced at the commander, her antennae saying more than her words. "No, Doctor. Please. Elaborate." the Andorian said through her teeth.

Korok laughed heartily. "An explanation is hardly necessary, my comrades! I might have suspected it from the start. A small band of warriors--bound not by duty or uniform, but undying loyalty--with nothing more than a little shuttle to slay the wounded behemoth. What else could such a party be assembled for, but a glorious mission for the _par'Mach'kai_ of their leader?"

"Of course," Jimenez muttered. "Why else would we be out here?"

Ijhel shrugged. "I assumed I was the last to know. Is she well, Commander?"

Kreighen found himself looking at anything except his shipmates. "Korok has his people taking care of the prisoners. That's all I know, Doctor."

"By Kahless, there may be a song in this. I'll--" Korok was nearly ready to take down notes when the communications system grafted to his forearm beeped. "This is Korok."

A voice came through the device. "General, the cube has been secured. What shall we do with the Starfleet holograms?"

"They'll need to be beamed to the _Hrunting_ ," Ijhel broke in. "I can run their shutdown routines from there."

Korok relayed the orders and addressed his guests. "I must prepare for the voyage, my friends. Perhaps later you can regale me with more of your war stories." He strode out of the chamber, mumbling a tune he had already begun to compose.

Tirava rose from her chair, never taking her eyes off of Commander Kreighen as she composed herself and took hear leave. A few moments later, Jimenez followed suit. For several minutes Kreighen sat there in the silence, his stomach knotting from his discomfort. Doctor Ijhel simply sat beside him, not moving or speaking. After a few minutes it became clear she had business with him, and he was in no mood to delay it further.

"You didn't have to do that." Kreighen sneered.

"You're right," Ijhel leaned back in her chair, and smiled sardonically. "I could have just shot you in your sleep. But then it wouldn't be a _true_ victory, now would it?"


	27. Chapter 27

"We need to talk."

Kreighen found Tirava wandering through the sphere, on her way to anything except standing still. He was already operating on pure luck, in that the Andorian wasn't in the mood to kill him. Although he wasn't so sure of that when she pivoted to face him.

"No," she flared, "we _had_ to talk. Days ago." She dismissed him and walked faster down the corridor.

"Tirava, I'm sorry--"

She turned back again. "Your secret little mission is over, pinkskin. I don't have to listen to you anymore!"

He became frustrated and pounded on a bulkhead. "Dammit, Tirava! I tried to keep you out of all this..."

"Really? Did you try to keep me out of your bed? What did you _think_ would happen when you dragged me halfway into Borg space to risk my life saving your...your cuckquean?"

"I didn't--" he stopped, realizing there was no good way to defend himself. "I wasn't trying to hurt you."

"What sickens me the most is your human attitude about this." She could tell he didn't understand. "You couldn't just state your true intentions; your guilt made you cover it up and magnify the problem. If an Andorian trades one lover for another, there is no deception...our passions run too deep for such subtlety. A man from my people would bluntly state his true intent, to my face, and accept the consequences."

She began to walk away again, but the insult to his species, and more importantly his male pride, pushed him too far. "Then what the hell are the consequences?" he growled as he snatched her wrist. "Come back here and--"

That was a mistake. As he pulled her towards him, Tirava used the momentum to twist him into a simple throw. Kreighen's back hit the deck, knocking the wind out of him before he knew what had happened. When he opened his eyes he saw a face he barely recognized, and a palm poised to drive his nose into his brain. For a moment they stared at one another, both breathing heavily.

"You have a lot to learn about Andorian women," she finally said to him as she lowered her guard. "In my species the female is the sexual aggressor. We take what we want. The male can object, although he's in for a fight. But you _accepted_ my advances."

Kreighen almost smiled in spite of himself. "Are you saying I don't have a say in this?"

"I'm saying--!" Her antennae flexed as she tried to calm herself. "I'm saying you're _my_ conquest, Kreighen. I took you in good faith, of your own free will, and _no one_ has the right to deny me my rightful claim." She stood up, letting him free. "Whether I still care to enforce that claim is my decision, not yours. You can't be rid of me as easily as you would like."

Kreighen remained where he lay until he was sure Tirava was out of earshot, to make sure he didn't antagonize her again. Only then did he attempt to determine whether he _could_ get up. His back was on fire, making it difficult to even get on his hands and knees. He was trying to roll like a turtle when he heard footsteps approaching and saw a figure in a Starfleet uniform.

"Jimenez..." he muttered. "I was on my way to apologize to you. Tirava...didn't take it very well. I think I might have a cracked rib..."

The ensign said nothing as he stared down at the lieutenant commander. He simply stepped back, then drove his boot into Kreighen's side. 

"Now you know," Jimenez said coldly.

Kreighen coughed and groaned. The surprise of the assault just made the pain worse. "Wh--what are you do--"

"Get up." Jimenez didn't wait for him to respond, though, before grasping Kreighen by the arms and hauling him up to his feet. The commander could barely support his own weight, so the junior officer pinned him against the wall. "You still don't get it. Even when I _told you_ that I'd obey your orders if you respected me enough to be transparent about them. But you _still_ thought you could lie to me--!" He punched Kreighen square in the face, letting him collapse to the ground again.

"Maybe now you'll get it through your head," Jimenez yelled. "You're not a hero. You're not Saint George rescuing princesses from dragons. You're nothing but a self-important cowboy hiding behind your uniform to get what you want!" He kicked the commander in the head. "Well, how do you like it from this end, Kreighen? Don't worry, there's a good reason I'm doing this, but you don't need to know! You can file charges when we get back!"

After a few minutes of this, Jimenez had gotten his fill, and pulled his commbadge from his uniform. "Let them court martial me," he said, throwing the badge to the ground. "It'd be better than spending my career taking orders from lunatics like you. I quit."

As he stormed off, Kreighen struggled to reach for the trinket, staring at it through the swelling in his right eye. Korok's people would stumble upon him before long. In the meantime, he found he was in no hurry to be relieved of his pain.


	28. Chapter 28

"Have a seat, Mister Kreighen."

Jake Kreighen moved slowly from the doorway to the chair waiting for him. Korok's Borg sphere possessed several talented physicians but little in the way of medical equipment, and while his injuries were largely healed his pain was largely not. He finally lowered himself carefully onto the cushion, the bitter expression on his face never changing as he looked up to face the admiral.

He'd been hearing stories about Kathryn Janeway since he graduated from the Academy. As the captain of the USS _Voyager_ she was famed for leading that ship home after being stranded on the far side of the galaxy. This reputation was magnified in light of her later rise to admiralty and her advocacy of an invasion of Borg space. She was now the Fleet Admiral in charge of the entire Starfleet presence in the Delta Quadrant, and since the Klingons and Romulans were mutually more at ease taking orders from a Federation official than each other, this made her the supreme leader of the entire Allied armada.

From what he'd heard, Janeway was a complex woman; in one moment she could be the kindly matriarch of her subordinates, and in the next she might resort to torture if the ends justified her means. At the moment Kreighen couldn't help but notice she didn't look very kindly upon him.

She put down a datapad she'd been reading, then stood up tall as she could, hands on her hips. "I've read your report," she began, "and the reports from Ensign Jimenez and the others you took with you. Would you care to guess how many inconsistencies I spotted?"

Kreighen looked down, offering no answer.

"I wouldn't either, if I were you." She circled her desk, looking around her office. "I also spoke to General Korok before you arrived at D-4. He has a high opinion of your...adventure. I doubt any flag officer in Starfleet would be inclined to agree with him. I certainly don't. Nevertheless, I've also seen the reaction from the personnel on this station when Korok brought you back here. I suppose you know you're a hero now, Commander."

He looked up, stonefaced. "Am I?"

"Oh, absolutely," she smiled, but only to magnify her irony. "They say when the 7th Fleet was destroyed by the the Borg's new offensive, and the war was all but lost, Jacob Kreighen survived to take a dead drone back to D-19 so the Alliance could develop new defenses. And when D-19--and the drone--were destroyed, he selflessly flew out into enemy space to get another Borg corpse. This time he had nothing but a Flyer, three crewmen, and a few experimental holograms...and brought back an entire cube. And so we're back to finding new anti-Borg technology, and the war isn't so lost after all. On top of that, you rescued prisoners taken from the 7th, and you singlehandedly established contact with Unimatrix Zero."

"I suppose that's mostly true," Kreighen admitted.

"Depends on how you see it, Commander." Her smile quickly dissipated. "I see an officer who couldn't wait to get back into the fight to settle a personal vendetta, who stole a Federation shuttle rather than wait for reassignment. I see that officer taking a repatriate Borg with him, creating unimaginable risk of the Collective gaining crucial intelligence on our most vital technology. I see him giving a civilian Cardassian scientist unrestricted access to critical systems in a Federation vessel. I see him recklessly putting a junior officer's life at risk. And most importantly, I see him abandoning the 9th Fleet and D-19 to be slaughtered by the Borg, so he could gallivant into enemy territory to rescue his sweetheart."

He grit his teeth. "I suppose that's even more true." 

"You see my dilemma, then," Janeway continued. "If we were in the Alpha Quadrant, there'd be nothing to discuss--you'd be dishonorably discharged and sent to prison. But this is the Delta Quadrant. We don't take enemy prisoners, we rescue and repatriate...conscripts. We don't have anywhere to lock up our own personnel, because we can't afford to take any able-bodied people off the front lines. And I can't send you home--"

"'Can't?'" Kreighen asked. "Or _'won't'_?"

Janeway stopped and glared at him. She was as quick as they said. "This is what you wanted," she whispered.

"Excuse me?"

"The woman you went out there to rescue. Is she a girlfriend? Your wife?"

"I'd rather not drag her into this, Admiral..."

"What's her _name_ , Commander? I _will_ find out, even if I have to go to ask all four women from that cube if you kissed them."

Kreighen's poker face cracked. "She, uh...she...wasn't conscious...when I..."

She moved in for the kill. "You didn't even know that woman, did you?"

He exhaled slowly and looked straight at Janeway. He was cornered and he knew it. "No, ma'am."

Janeway threw her hands in the air and walked away from him, awestruck. She held her hand to her forehead, as if to somehow relieve her tension, then strode back towards him. "You went through _all of this_ , just to get yourself in enough trouble for...what? To force me to send you back to the Alpha Quadrant? Why not just shoot yourself in the foot?"

"I considered something like that," Kreighen said coldly, dropping any pretense. "It would have been easy to get the court martial. But it had to be big enough to go all the way up to you, Admiral. Because if it were someone else they might order me back to New Zealand, but you'd find some reason to quietly block it. I had to make sure I had your attention."

"You didn't have to...to molest a fellow officer to take this to me."

"That wasn't part of the plan," he insisted, shaking his head. "Neither was taking Tirava and the others with me. I had to convince them to agree to the mission, and then convince them that it was a deception, so they'd be off the hook. So I found a woman in the assimilation chamber and made sure there were witnesses. Whoever she is, she has nothing to do with this, Admiral. And Tirava, Ijhel, Jimenez--they're all innocent."

Janeway knitted her brow. "You still haven't explained _why_. You obviously weren't trying to get out of the fighting."

"Battle doesn't concern me. But you can't win the _war_ , Admiral. Someone has to make you see that."

He might as well have insulted her parents, or her first command. "You've just crossed the line, Commander--"

"I _crossed_ the line three days ago! I had to, just to get a chance to say this! The Borg will always find ways to adapt to our technology. A standing army on their doorstep can only counter-adapt for so long--the 7th found that out the hard way. Sooner or later they'll overrun the territory we've captured, and then there'll be nothing to stop them from a full-scale invasion of the Alpha Quadrant. This war was a mistake, but you're too bullheaded to back down now. So you're using radio silence to hide from the Federation Council, because if they knew what's happening out here, they'd order you to withdraw."

"And what if we did withdraw?" Janeway snapped. Kreighen had successfully goaded her into changing the subject from his insubordination to the war itself. He _might_ live to regret it. "What then? Fortify defenses in the Alpha Quadrant, stick our heads in the sand, and wait for another Bolarus?"

"We could beat the Borg at Bolarus, Admiral. We can't beat them in the Delta Quadrant."

"Like hell we can't!" she fumed. "No one understands them like I do--not Picard, not Shelby, and certainly not the Federation Council. They're still recovering from Species 8472, Unimatrix Zero, and last but not least _Voyager_. This is our only chance to overrun them, and I won't allow anyone to cause me to miss this opportunity."

"Then you have a problem," Kreighen noted. "Because if you drum me out of Starfleet you'll have to send me back to Earth, and risk receiving orders you won't like. If you _don't_ kick me out, people are going to start asking why, and I'll know you can't stop me from telling them."

They were both silent for a moment, each recognizing the deadlock. But Janeway wasn't known for letting other people have the last word. "Commander, I spent seven years riding herd on a senior staff that was constantly defying my authority. My first officer was a terrorist. My pilot was an ex-convict. When someone was out of line, I never had the luxury of putting them off the ship or letting them rot in the brig. So you're right--I do have a problem. But I've solved problems bigger than you before."

She handed him a PADD from her desk. "Korok has requested that the Alliance assign a detachment to work alongside Unimatrix Zero. The rebellion operates entirely inside Borg space. This unit would be operating outside of Alliance authority, without Alliance resources. I've noticed that these factors play to your strengths. Besides...Korok likes you."

Kreighen's eyes widened. "You're trying to get rid of me."

"You'll report--when that's possible, which won't be often--only to me. Within a year our forces will presume you and your team have been killed in action, which will most likely be true in any case."

"What 'team' do you mean?"

Janeway returned to her chair and leaned forward on her desk. "It seemed unwise to break up such an effective crew."

He jumped to his feet, ignoring his aching ribs. "You can't do this to them! I told you, they weren't involved! I accepted full responsibility for this--"

"Sweeping you under the rug and letting them stay here doesn't clean the mess you've made for me," Janeway pointed out. "A commander can take one for the team, but sometimes the team has to take one for their commander. Keep that in mind the next time you give an order."

"Admiral..." He wanted to protest, to find some way to argue his way into greater punishment in exchange for sparing the others. But Janeway was right. He'd played his hand and lost.

Sensing his capitulation, she supplied him with new his orders. "The _Hrunting_ is being refitted for the mission in shuttlebay seven. Meet your crew there at oh-four-hundred and dock with the _Exsecuturus_. You'll be out of Allied space by oh-six-hundred--under Korok's command--or I'll have you fired upon. Dismissed."

***

For all the technological advantages in the past four hundred years, Kreighen found that Federation shuttlebay doors always creaked and groaned and took far too long to open. He had hoped that by showing up an hour early, he could be the first to arrive. He was the last.

Tirava was now back in Starfleet colors, reinstated at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade. It was impossible for Kreighen to know whether this was official, or simply a token gesture to assure Unimatrix Zero of the Andorian's legitimacy. Given that they were about to sever all ties to Starfleet, the point was probably moot. She stared holes into him, obviously still angry over his actions. At this point, he wasn't sure which version of events she hated him for. This too was likely irrelevant.

Utana Ijhel had been given a uniform as well, and she seemed far less comfortable in it. Ajax was standing beside her. Kreighen concluded that the Cardassian would rather take her prototype into hell than let another programmer rewrite her code. Of course, her ideal arrangement would have been to continue her work at a considerable distance from the fighting. For the second time Kreighen had made this impossible. Ijhel looked away as he approached.

Sergeant Ajax, for his part, appeared completely unconcerned. He was programmed to fight wars, and the other variables passed to his subroutines were relatively unimportant to him. As unusual as Kreighen's command might have seemed to the hologram, Kreighen was still his commanding officer.

Nathan Jimenez was still in the uniform he had stained with Kreighen's blood. The young engineer was at once ashamed of his actions and unrepentant for them. His only wish was to serve out a model Starfleet career, and any hope of that was now gone. Whatever composure he had before began to erode as soon as Kreighen walked within ten feet of him. And Kreighen was prepared for this.

"None of you care that I'm sorry," he told them, "so I won't waste your time. But the rules have changed. So the next time one of you wants to take a shot at me..." He held up a large polaron pistol from its holster on his hip. "...I shoot back. Is that understood?"

None of them said anything. Kreighen looked over his crew one last time, and saw one last thing out of place. Fishing into his pocket, he produced the commbadge Jimenez had thrown before him, and pinned it back on the ensign's chest. 

"All right," Kreighen said, "everybody get aboard, and prep the shuttle for launch. Tirava, you'll notify Korok that we're arriving ahead of schedule."

They silently set about their duties. Only Tirava spoke. "Aye..." she replied as she headed for the hatchway, making sure to bump into his shoulder. "... _Commander_."

Jake Kreighen shuddered at the word. He was never going to get used to that.


End file.
